


To The One I Love

by cabinalbum



Category: Fall Out Boy, Mindless Self Indulgence, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco, The Used
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, Amnesia, Anorexia, Anxiety Attacks, Compulsive Liar, Depression, Forbidden Love, Hospitals, Illegal Activities, Love Letters, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, POV First Person, Panic Attacks, Paraphrenia, Schizophrenia, Underage Relationship(s), bert is a good guy, brendon and ryan are both 15, brendon is obsessed with aliens, gerard is 23 and frank is 18, hey if bexless can do it with stigmata then i can do it w girl interrupted, i take more than a little influence from girl interrupted, kind of, like i lifted an entire scene from that film at one point, pete and gerard are best friends, ryan and gerard r good friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2018-12-06 03:26:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 35,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11591949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabinalbum/pseuds/cabinalbum
Summary: Gerard Way's life fucking sucked. For over a year now, he had been locked away in a hole of a mental institution. He'd been away so long he struggled to remember what being home felt like. His days now consisted of sitting on hard plastic chairs, pretending to take pills, and watching Josh and Pierre try to predict the future via the medium of pasta- and that's the way he likes it. He's perfectly happy to live out the rest of his days in Belleville Institute- as long as his little brother Mikey comes to visit once a week. That all changes, however, when a new orderly is assigned to care for him. He's instantly captivated by the man's black hair and hazel eyes, and starts to live again- spaghetti, pills and plastic replaced by smoking, sneaking out at night, and kissing under CCTV blind-spots.





	1. You Look So Seattle

_If I knew one thing for certain, it's that I was choking. The thick, black smoke was curling down the walls from the cracks in the ceiling, and I was swallowing more with every breath. As it polluted my lungs, all I could think about was how odd it was that asphyxiation felt a lot like drowning. That the thick smoke filling my lungs didn't feel like smoke at all, but like water._

_"Gerard? Oh, Gerard, for God's sake-"_

I awoke faced with the white tiled ceiling of the infirmary. I craned my aching neck in seek of an explanation. I didn't recall being taken here. In fact, I didn't remember anything since I saw Pierre throwing his spaghetti at the wall during dinner and trying to form coherent sentences out of the shapes it made.

"Gerard?" came the same voice I had heard in my dream from the other end of the room. I spun my head around to look at her, cringing at the pain it caused.

"What now?" I groaned, coming face-to-face with the familiar woman, the lovely Dr D James.

"Do you know why you're here?" she asked, walking over slowly before lowering herself into the white plastic chair beside the bed. _Why was everything in this stupid place white?_

"Severe clinical depression, low mood, paranoid anxiety, suicidal ideation, should I carry on?" I asked, reeling off the many labels they had tacked to the the cork-board entitled "Gerard Way's Mental State".

"Not the institute, Way" she sighed, running one of her hands through her hair. "The infirmary, why are you in the infirmary?"

My eyes widened slightly in realization. "Oh," I sighed softly, "I don't know, not really."

"Well," she began, picking up the clipboard that had been stored at the end of the bed. "You were found unconscious in the showers, face down with the water running. Water got in your lungs- you've been unconscious for three days. You could have drowned. Don't you remember this?"

"Honestly, no. I think I'd recall falling asleep in the shower. I don't remember anything since dinner."

She looked at me accusingly, and I held up my hands in a surrendering manner. This time, I was actually telling the truth.

"Why do you think that is? Why do you think you can't remember?"

"Well shit, I don't know, you're supposed to be the doctor, remember?" she rolled her eyes at me before gesturing to a small note on the paper of the clipboard.

 _'Gerard has refused all food for the past fifteen days, and water for the past two. His body is severely dehydrated, and he has been suffering from severe lethargy, dizziness, and lightheadedness as a result.'_ This was followed by some medical shit which I didn't quite understand, and I looked up at Dr James.

"Do you remember anything now, Gerard?"

"I needed a shower." I grunted, shuffling slightly under the thin white sheets.

"What was that?" she inquired, grabbing a pen, poised and ready to write down the _stirring confession_ I was about to give her.

"It was too hot in the cafeteria, and Pete was pissing me off. Kept whispering in my ear about shit he'd done to my brother- he's never even _met_ my brother, y'know? And it was too much, so I needed a shower. So I left the cafeteria and headed to the showers. I guess I must have passed out in there or some shit."

"So it _wasn't_ another suicide attempt?" she implored, looking at me with her best 'I can read your mind' glare.

"If it was, I'd be dead. I'm not the type to make the same mistake three times." I laughed, noting the shocked look on her face.

"And that's why we have you here" she sighed, before standing up and patting my leg through the sheets. "We've had you on a drip for the past three days, you're fully re-hydrated, however you still need to eat. Frank should be here any time soon to take you to the cafeteria."

" _Frank?_ " I asked, looking at her confusedly. I didn't recall any orderlies called Frank working here, and there definitely weren't any patients under that name. If there had been, I'd know.

"He's a new orderly, he's been specifically assigned to care for you for his first few months of placement."

"Why me?" I asked. It wasn't exactly like I was special, and I didn't see what caring for me specifically could bring to him.

"You're the... well, let's say you're the most stable patient we have. You'll be the least stress for him. This is his first official job as a fully qualified medical assistant, and we can't allow him to attempt to control someone like Josh Ramsay.

I smirked at that, remembering how just two weeks ago, Josh had bitten Bob's arm, and proceeded to announce to the courtyard that Bob was made of candy.

"He's a crazy bastard" I chuckled, yanking the IV from my arm.

"And you're reckless" Dr James replied, taking my hand in hers to ensure that I took it out correctly, and wasn't about to bleed out through the back of my hand. (Something which probably wasn't even possible, but this woman would check for testicular cancer in a castrated cat.)

The door creaked open slowly, and in walked a man who, honestly, couldn't have been much younger than me. His black hair fell haphazardly around his eyes, and his exposed arms were heavily laden with tattoos. He seemed so dark in comparison to the plain white uniform he was wearing. Dr James quickly exited the room, and I was left to marvel at the beauty of the man who had just entered the room.

Because, in all honesty, he was beautiful. It took me everything I had not to reach out and brush his hair away from where it fell in front of his hazel eyes, or to not stand up there and then and kiss him so hard he would fall through the wall and into another dimension, or some Brendon-esque crap like that.

I didn't believe in love at first sight, but by God, if anyone was going to change that, it would definitely be someone like him.

"Uhm... Gerard Way?" he asked, uncertain, snapping me out of whatever daydream my brain had conjured up featuring this stranger's lips.

"Oh, uhm, yea?" I asked, fumbling with the sheets in an attempt to escape them. Somehow, my legs had become intricately weaved within the fabric. It was like God was purposely trying to cause me to look a fool in front of the attractive man I'd only just met.

"I've been told to- to take you to eat...?" It was more so a question than a statement. He sounded scared, as if he had no idea how he was expecting me to react. That was when it hit me- to him, I wasn't a normal person. I wasn't the guy from the coffee shop who asked for his number, or the one who sat in front of him in math class.

I was his patient.

To him, I wasn't an equal. I was the crazy guy he'd been assigned to care for. To him, I was unpredictable and intimidating. He was expecting me to be unstable, to lash out at him for expecting me to eat.

Weirdly, that fact didn't defeat me. It didn't cause me to stop lusting after him. If anything, it instilled a new confidence in me. I found myself wanting to change myself however I could just to please him. I wanted to be normal, just to have even a slither of a chance with him. My mother always told me when I was younger, that I could become anything that I wanted. I wanted more than anything to be normal, and if I wasn't already, then I would change myself until I was.

For this perfect stranger, I was going to get better.


	2. We Live Such Fragile Lives

The walk to the cafeteria held us in its menacing silence, and it was deafening. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't expecting Frank to start spilling his murder-themed Peppa Pig theories any time soon, but it just sucked that he wasn't speaking to me. He was keeping his distance physically, too- he walked slightly ahead of me, his pace quicker than mine, but not yet fast enough to be considered running.

I was relieved when we actually reached the cafeteria. I found that it was completely empty, and the large white clock at the end of the hall told me that it was 3pm, meaning that the rest of the patients would be outside in the courtyard, doing whatever the heck it was crazy guys liked to do in their spare time. I slid into my usual seat in the leftmost corner of the room, and chuckled at the pasta sauce stains on the wall- they always tried to clean them off, but every Wednesday they'd return, with Pierre adamant that next week's weather forecast was much more important than the hospital's pristine walls.

Frank slid a tray onto the metal table, sitting carefully in the seat opposite me. He was still observing me with caution- as if I was a wild animal, and he was scared that any sudden movement may startle me.

"I'm not going to hurt you, you know" I told him, stabbing my cold mashed potatoes and looking up at him with a smirk. "I'm not like the others."

"The others...?" he asked, shuffling in his seat. He seemed so uncomfortable, even just around me, and it made me wonder just how much experience in these places he actually had.

"Well, you see," I began, putting my fork down and leaning on the table, elbows digging into the harsh surface and my chin resting on my entwined hands. "Take Josh, for example. The dude's insane. He took so many drugs it fried his brain. Pierre thinks knows shit, that his spaghetti tells him the future, but the best thing he's predicted was the events of the next Game Of Thrones episode. Bob hasn't spoken a word since he got here, and he loves stuffed animals. Brendon thinks he's buds with aliens and has seen parallel universes and all that crap- if you ask me, he's watched too much Doctor Who- and Pete, well, Pete lies. He'll pretty it up, tell you it's psuedologia fantastica, but when it comes down to it, he's just a compulsive liar." I could go on and on about the people I saw day-to-day in this place; I'd watched them for so long I knew their every movement before they even made it. _Ryan_ _didn't_ _eat,_ _Hayley_ _pulled_ _her_ _hair_ _out,_ _Patrick_ _didn't_ _know_ _who_ _he_ _was,_ _Jesse_ _thought_ _he_ _was_ _dead,_ _and_ _Alex_ _liked_ _to_ _pretend_ _that_ _he_ _was_ _on_ _a_ _90s_ _sitcom_.

"And what about you?" Frank asked, his perfect hazel eyes looking up into mine. He'd taken a similar position to me, except he was only resting on one hand. "Why are you here?"

"I'm sad and scared" I responded quickly, not too keen on discussing the subject with him. My plan had been to make him believe I was normal until I could be, not discuss the details of my medicine bills.

"There's gotta be more than that, otherwise you wouldn't be here" he remarked, and I cursed his puppy eyes.

I wasn't going down that easily.

"Maybe there's more. Maybe Dr James just likes to keep me here to experiment on, like a lab rat" I laughed, picking up my fork again and moving the clumping mashed potatoes around the tray.

"Is that so?" he asked, laughing to himself. I looked up at him, and tried to make myself look deadly serious, before responding,

"Squeak squeak."

And with that, he fell out of his chair, his laughter literally knocking him over. He attempted to pull himself up from the floor, and I extended a hand to aid him. He took it, and I helped him back into his seat, before muttering,

" _Looks_ _like_ _you've_ _fallen_ _for_ _me_. _"_

"Excuse me?" he asked, cocking his head to the side in confusion.

"Nothing, it doesn't matter." I brushed it off. _Well_ _shit,_ _Gerard,_ _now_ _he_ _thinks_ _you're_ _talking_ _to_ _yourself_. _So_ _much_ _for_ _taking_ _the_ _'I'm_ _not_ _crazy'_ _front,_ _huh?_  

"You need to eat, Gerard" he told me, flicking the tray with his finger and pushing it ever so slightly more towards me.

"This food is shit." I retorted, pushing the tray over to him.

"Why are you starving yourself?" he asked, staring deep into my eyes as if he was trying to 'read' me.

"Is that what you think?!" I scoffed, rising quickly from my seat. Frank stood up too, but he looked less intimidating and more like a deer in headlights. "You think I'm anorexic or some shit? Maybe you should go find _Ryan_ if that's what you want, because that's not me."

"So what's with the refusal to eat, then?" he asked, arms half-outstretched, as if he wasn't sure whether or not he could touch me without me biting his arm off. I collapsed into my seat, rubbing my face with one hand. He wasn't trying to upset me. It was me who was overreacting like this.

"Pete told me he saw the cook spit in the food" I muttered. It seemed so dumb now, especially admitting it like this to Frank, who I was trying to convince that I was normal.

"And you told me, not five minutes ago, that Pete lies. So why, this time, are you believing him?"

"You don't get it, Frank. The problem with a liar is that sometimes, they tell the truth."

"And you're suggesting Pete really did see the cook spit in the food?" he asked, pulling a notepad from his pocket.

"I don't _know_ , and that's the problem. But once that idea is in my head, it won't go away. The only way for me to make sure I wasn't eating the cook's spit, was to not eat her food at all. But when it's the only food available, they call it 'Hunger Strike' and take away your privileges. Also, this food is both cold and disgusting anyways, possible saliva pollution aside."

"I can get you food from elsewhere, if only you promise to eat it." he told me, and I perked up instantly. "I don't have anything spectacular right now, but I think I have a few cookies in my car..." he trailed off, before noticing the pleading look on my face.

" _Please_?" I asked, and as if on cue, my stomach groaned loudly.

"Okay, okay, I'll go get you them- but you can't tell a soul, okay?" he quickly rushed out of the room after making me promise to stay seated where I was, and I complied, because _fuck_ , I hadn't had cookies in over a year.

And if I was honest, they were the best fucking cookies of my life. Frank took a lot longer than expected to retrieve the food, but he had walked back in with a big smile on his face, and an extremely noticeable lump in the side of his shirt. He pulled the bag of cookies out from under it and passed them to me eagerly, but there was one thing that I noticed over my excitement at the concept of chocolate.

"You smell of cigarettes." I told him, as if he didn't already know.

"Uh- uhm, yeah, I smoked while I was outside. It's not a problem, right? The smell, I mean" he stumbled, suddenly seeming on-edge.

"No, it's fine." I told him, peeling back the paper wrapping of the cookie bag. "It's just, I haven't had a cigarette since I got here. Maybe you could just-"

He cut me off, spluttering a response that told me just how ludicrous my request was to him.

"No, Gerard- no! _Fuck_ , I shouldn't even be giving you those cookies. Junk food is one thing but shit, cigarettes? I can't do that, I'm sorry. I could lose my job."

"You could lose your job for giving me the cookies," I pointed out, "but you did it anyway."

"Cookies," he spat, jabbing the table with one finger, "are completely different to drugs."

Fucking hell, he was acting as if Josh had just requested he acquire him heroin. It wasn't like cigarettes are what got me in this mess, and nor were they even illegal.

"You're no fun" I laughed, and he fell back into his seat opposite me

"Or maybe I'm just scared."


	3. I Still Pick My Friends Over You

As it turns out, having my own orderly assigned to me was a lot less fun that it sounds. On one hand, I had an eager attendant constantly at my beck and call, but on the other, I was constantly being babysat, and could no longer get away with the small things I did which the other orderlies were normally too busy to notice. For example, Frank realized straight away when I coughed out my pills into my sleeve. He shot me an accusatory look, and didn't take too kindly to me attempting to play dumb.

"What?" I had asked him, tilting my head in a similar manner to how he had on the day we had met.

"Don't try and bullshit me, Gerard" he replied, grabbing my arm and prying the small pills from where they had begin to stick to the material of my plain white sweater. "Why aren't you taking your pills?

"I don't need them" I grunted in response. He shook his head at me, leading me over to Dr James's office.

"You obviously need them" he sighed, throwing the half-disintegrated, dirty pills into a trashcan. "Otherwise they wouldn't be prescribed to you."

He had a point, I had to admit. They weren't likely to prescribe possibly addictive anti-depressants to kids willy-nilly. However, I was still adamant on proving myself normal to Frank, and if I were to do that, I couldn't take those pills. That was like a daily reminder to him that I wasn't the normal person I was pretending to be.

We reached Dr James' office, and he knocked thrice before entering, pulling me inside with him.

"Yes, Frank?" she asked, looking up from the pile of papers which had been strewn across her desk. He immediately seemed to cave in on himself, struggling to explain why he'd dragged both me and himself to her office.

"G-Ger-Gerar- uhm, uh, uhm, Gerard- Gerard hasn't been taking his pills..."

"What do you mean he hasn't been taking his pills?" she asked, and it suddenly felt as if they had forgotten I was in the room at all. I leant against the wall, proping one foot against it to keep me up. If they were going to talk about me like I wasn't here, I might as well pretend I wasn't.

"I only noticed this morning- he spat them out into his sleeve."

She beckoned him closer to her and they began to talk in low murmurs. I could no longer hear them, and so had no fucking clue what they were saying. Being in the room with the two of them was no longer appealing now that I couldn't eavesdrop, and so I slipped out of the door silently, and made my way to the courtyard.

Pushing open the heavy doors to the outside world, I saw that everyone else was repeating their usual daily activities. Ryan and Brendon were huddled up in the corner together, Brendon pointing up in to the sky and talking to Ryan passionately, most likely explaining some alien crap. Ryan never believed him, but he listened anyway, entertaining the boy he loved. Josh and Pierre were chasing each other, doing whatever the hell it was two schizophrenics did together. Jesse, Hayley, and Alex were examining flowers, the two boys tying them precariously in Hayley's red hair. Then there was Patrick, Pete, and Bob, sitting together in the most rudimentary circle they could manage with just the three of them. Pete and Patrick were holding hands in a way that was reminiscent of five-year-olds, and Bob was stroking the fur of his stuffed rabbit. I wandered over, taking my place between Bob and Pete. Pete shuffled closer to me, resting his head on my shoulder, but still not letting go of Patrick's hand.

"Where did you go?" Patrick asked, pulling the sleeves of his own sweater over his hands the best he could manage without letting go of Pete. We all were forced to wear the same thing- a plain white sweater or short sleeved shirt, baby blue sweatpants, and white loafers.

"I escaped and went for a wander around New Jersey. They found me in a ditch." I laughed, watching as Patrick's jaw dropped. "Okay, no, that was a joke. I was in the infirmary."

"Pete said you died." Patrick said, lifting their arms a little to gesture towards the black-haired boy whose face was currently buried into my shoulder.

"Yeah, well Pete's an asshole" I retorted, elbowing him in the side. It's not like I could be mad at him, though; Pete most likely had believed that I'd died. He wouldn't lie to Patrick just for the thrill.

I wondered if it's what Pierre's spaghetti had told him.

"I don't think you're an asshole, Pete" Patrick mumbled, suddenly finding the grass to be the most interesting thing in the world.

Bob jumped suddenly, dropping his rabbit to the ground and staring up at the figure behind me in what seemed to be terror. I looked behind me to find Frank standing there, two small cups in one hand.

"What do you want?" I sighed, and was disappointed when he sat himself down in the space between Bob and I. He handed me both cups, and I saw that one contained my pills, and the other had a small amount of water.

"You didn't think you could actually get out of taking these, did you?" he asked, and I rolled my eyes, before hesitantly throwing the pills in my mouth and washing them down with the water. I wasn't happy about taking them- but it seemed that Frank wouldn't let me get away without doing so.

I looked towards Frank, expecting him to leave now that he had what he wanted, but he didn't. Instead, he just smiled up at me, and I pulled Pete closer into my side, causing Patrick to shoot me a glare that told me he wasn't happy.

When Patrick had first arrived here, he seemed to be empty. He'd tell you his name, and how old he was, but apart from that, he didn't seem... like a person. He didn't have any memories, any likes or dislikes. Talking to him had felt like talking to a robot with a faulty personality drive.

That changed when he became friends with Pete.

I wasn't sure exactly how it had happened, but the two had grown unbelievably close. They were unconventional, but they worked- Pete was a compulsive liar, and Patrick was naïve enough to believe every word that fell from his lips.

Because he didn't have anyone else who gave him the time and ability to develop a personality, Patrick stuck to Pete like glue. It just sucked for him that Pete was already stuck to me.

I wasn't in a relationship with Pete- he just found comfort in me, and had done since he'd first turned up here, scared and isolated from the world. I'd offered him a bed in my room, and my friendship, and he quickly became attached to me. If it hadn't been for his lying, and obsession with my younger brother, there could have possibly been something there. I wasn't attracted to him, though, and I hadn't actually found anyone attractive in a long time. _Until_ _now,_ my brain screamed, my eyes quickly darting to catch a glimpse of the man still sat next to me. Frank was kneeling on the fake grass, feet tucked neatly behind him. His hair was unruly as usual, however I could tell that he had in fact made some attempt to neaten it.

"I don't like you." Pete stated from the crook of my neck, speaking up for the first time since I had sat down.

"And why is that?" Frank asked, scratching his neck and looking curiously at Pete.

"You're going to hurt Gerard." he accused, his voice laced with venom. I pulled away from him slightly, looking at him and trying to decipher just what was going on in his head at that very moment. As I had learned since making friends with Pete, liars are very hard to read.

"I promise you" Frank reassured, misguidedly attempting to use his puppy-dog eyes on Pete, "I will never hurt Gerard."

In that moment, I believed him.

In that moment, I forgot that Pete wasn't the only one who could lie.


	4. I've Got More Secrets Than You'll Ever Know

It wasn't often that I had a good night's sleep. It also wasn't very common, however, for me to not be able to sleep at all. Usually, it took me a good forty minutes of staring blankly at the ceiling through the dark to find myself being taken by my dreams. Today, however, was completely different.

I must have laid there for an hour and a half at least, legs woven tightly into the material of the thin duvet and listening to the sound of Pete's soft snores, before I decided to get up and go somewhere. None of us were criminals, nor did we have a track record of even attempted escapes, and so a lot of the doors were left unlocked at night. The only off-limits areas were places such as the cafeteria and the library.

I didn't care about either of those places, though. The best place to cure sleeplessness, was the courtyard. The quiet, the cold, and the crunch of the grass underfoot was soothing enough to calm any anxiety that may be preventing me from sleeping. It was my place during the night, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Or so I thought.

When I opened the door to the courtyard, I was shocked to find Frank sat on the bench in the middle of the grass, a cigarette in one hand, flicking the ash onto the floor with an unprofessional sense of disregard for the health hazard that it likely caused.

"Frank?" I said quietly, making my way over to the bench. I regretted my decision instantly as he jumped violently, putting his spare hand next to him on the bench to steady himself.

"Gerard, what the hell are you doing up? You're supposed to be asleep" he sighed, rubbing his bloodshot eyes with one hand.

"I couldn't sleep. I always come here when I can't sleep" I reasoned, sitting down beside him and tucking my feet under the bench, digging at the gravel on the floor with my exposed toes. This was exactly how to damage my feet, but I didn't give a fuck, in all honesty.

"Yeah, join the team" he sighed, before taking a long drag from his cigarette. I couldn't help but watch closely as he did so, and then look back up at him with pleading eyes.

"Please, Frank?"

"Wha- oh, the cigarette. No, Gerard, absolutely not. I told you before, I can't give you one. That's not me being an ass, that's me wanting to keep my job. I mean, I kind of need a job, seeing as..." he drifted off, seemingly distracted by the specks of dust dancing in the small lights lining the courtyard.

"Seeing as?" I asked, for some odd reason intrigued by Frank's life outside of the institute. It was easy, when you lived here, to become trapped in a pocket universe, and only care about what was happening inside of the institute. It was as if it became your whole world, and the world outside ceased to exist. But strangely, for Frank, I genuinely cared about who he was when he wasn't here.

"Well, if I lose this job, I have nowhere to live, to start with" he began, dropping his now-finished cigarette to the floor and immediately lighting another. I eyed his almost full pack with envy- if it wasn't for where we were, he could've spared at least one for me.

"You live here?" I asked, genuinely confused. Sure, it wasn't uncommon for the orderlies to live in the institute- they needed _some_ security at night- it was just that Frank had struck me as someone who, well, had a life.

"When I turned eighteen, my mom kicked me out of her house. She claimed that I was broken, and didn't deserve to live under her roof. I stayed with a friend for a long ass time, and then when I finished high school, I looked for a residential job, and, well- here I am, I guess."

High school? This confession had left me wondering just how old Frank was. I asked him, and he seemed hesitant to answer me.

"I'm still eighteen." he sighed finally, hanging his head in what seemed to be shame. "I turn nineteen in October, though, which is only three months away from now..." he seemed to be trying to make up for just how young he was. I must admit, though, I was surprised at just how young he was. Based on his looks, and just how heavily tattooed he was, I had presumed he was twenty-one at the very least.

"I'm twenty-three" I said, answering the question he had not even asked.

"So nobody likes you, huh?" he joked, and I nudged him with my shoulder in response.

"I'll have you know, I'm very popular... with mental patients" I reasoned, laughing along with him.

"Ah, but that's the best kind of popularity" he teased, running his free hand through his hair.

"Honestly, I think'd rather be in a world-famous band or some shit than friends with someone who deeply believes that he's two fifths alien, someone else who has a different set of parents every time you ask him, and someone who'd snap if you hugged him too hard."

"You talk about them as if you're different, Gerard. As if you don't belong in here with them." He observed, taking another drag from the cancer stick between his fingers.

"I'm not paraphrenic, nor am I a pathological liar, if that's what you're implying." I snapped, immediately jumping on the defensive. I may be friends with those people, but that didn't mean I wanted people to believe I was anything like them. I wasn't unstable, I didn't hallucinate or think that my spaghetti told the future. I was normal... passionately wanting to die was normal once one found out just how shit the world was, _surely_?

"That's not what I meant, Gerard." he sighed, tapping his fingers on the arm of the bench. "I meant that you obviously have difficulties in life. Maybe not as extreme as Pierre, Pete, or Brendon, but you definitely need help."

"I don't like that." I admitted, rubbing my eyes. "I don't like talking to you about me being crazy. I'm not crazy, not like them- I wanna be normal, Frank, okay? Can't we just pretend I'm normal?"

"You're not crazy." he agreed. "You may not be as 'normal' as you want to be, but- you're as normal as _I'd_ ever want you to be." He took another drag from his cigarette, and ran his free hand through his hair once again, before setting it on my knee. I lent back against the bench, the hard wood digging into my back. Seeing as his hand had now found it's place on my knee, I decided to test my boundaries, and placed my head on his shoulder, not all too dissimilar to how Pete leaned on me. He chuckled lightly, before getting up, butting out his cigarette, and putting both it and the old one in the trash, before returning back inside the institute. I probably should have followed him, but I was too stunned to do anything but sit there, burning a hole in the door through which he had disappeared with my gaze.

I still didn't even know his last name, but he had gotten me completely wrapped around his little finger within the space of a mere week.


	5. Make The Floods Seem Still

"Hey, Gerard, you still not eating?", Ryan asked, gesturing towards the empty space in front of me on the table. Frank had kept his promise every day since we'd met of bringing me food from outside. He had made sure it was the same food as the other patients were eating to be fair, and he'd always managed to get it to me before we all sat down to eat. Today, however, he was nowhere to be seen, and sitting at a table with Ryan, Brendon, Hayley, Bob, Pete, and Patrick, I was the only person who hadn't picked up a plate of food from the front of the room. 

"I am, I'm just, uh... waiting." I replied tentatively, not wanting them to pry further. I knew that if they found out that the food I was eating was from outside, I would be forced to go back to eating what the cook provided.

"Waiting? Waiting for what?" Hayley piped up, one hand tightly entwined in her hair and another using her fork to slide the fries around her plate. 

"Nothing- it's not important" I muttered, cursing Frank for being MIA today. 

Speak of the devil, and he doth appear- Frank walked into the room at that very moment, carrying  two plates of pizza and chips. He placed one in front of me, and sat down beside me with his own plate. We all ate together, the orderlies and the patients. The doctors, however, took their food to their offices- preferring to stay away from us.

"Oh, so you've got yourself a servant, then?" Brendon asked from beside Ryan, gesturing towards Frank, who realized he was being spoken about.

"He's not my servant, he was just getting me food-" I tried to explain, but Pete cut me off.

"Why couldn't you get your own food? When I was a kid I cooked for myself- you can get your own food if I can do that."

"Wait" Hayley stated, picking up a slice of my pizza and inspecting it. "This has pineapple on it!" 

"You have a problem with pineapple pizza?" I asked, looking at Hayley incredulously. 

"No, you fuck" she spat, pushing the slice of pizza in my face before comparing it with a slice from Ryan's untouched plate. "Our pizza doesn't have pineapple!"

"We never have pineapple pizza." Ryan muttered, looking at the slices on mine and Frank's plates. Frank shuffled nervously beside me, obviously realizing his mistake. 

"Where did you get that from?" Patrick asked meekly. He was usually incredibly non-confrontational, and I could tell he was only asking out of curiosity, and not malice.

"Gerard won't eat the cook's food because he's scared of it, so I get him food from outside the institute. It's the same thing you guys eat, just from a different place." Frank sighed, stabbing at the fries on his plate with his fork.

Patrick seemed happy with this answer, and went back to eating his own food. Ryan and Hayley, however, were angered by it.

"What do you mean he gets food from outside?!" Ryan yelled, as Brendon attempted to subdue him.

"Why can't we get outside food?! Why are we stuck with the cook's food if Gerard gets special treatment?" Hayley fumed, tugging on her thin hair so hard I could see her fingers turning white between the strands.

"If he gets other food, then we should too!" Ryan screamed, throwing his cutlery down to the table.

"I don't fucking see why you care, you never eat any way!" I accused, glaring at Ryan. I watched as tears welled up and he began to cry, before Brendon pulled him to his chest, shooting daggers my way in the process. Hayley became too distracted by Ryan's sobs, and Frank turned to me while they were distracted.

"You know what this means, don't you?" he muttered, his tone apologetic.I shook my head, not wanting to accept the idea that was forming in the back of my mind. "You're going to have to start eating the cook's food again." 

As soon as the words left his mouth, I could feel my chest tighten. My head was spinning and all I could hear was those eleven words repeating over and over in my head.

You're going to have to start eating the cook's food again.

The cook who spits in the food. 

  
My skin started to crawl at the thought, like thousands of tiny spiders were emerging from my wrists and climbing all the way up to my neck, crawling down my neck and filling up my lungs, stopping my breathing. 

I rose from the table as I could start to feel the tears cascading down my cheeks, and ran out of the room. I needed a shower- I always needed a shower when I got like this. I needed to clean them off of me- the spiders, the bugs. I needed to rid myself of their crawling and the tingling feeling.

I made my way into the shower block and got inside the closest one, turning on the water and not bothering to rid myself of my clothes. I needed to be under the water to straighten my head, and I was willing to sacrifice clean clothes for that.

"Gerard?" I heard a voice call from the hall outside. I tried to stay as quiet as possible, but the sound of running water gave me away. I heard the door open, and braced myself for the worst.

"Gerard?" the voice came again, more timid this time. In my confsuon, I wasn't able to place just who the familiar-yet-scared voice belonged to. 

Their footsteps approached, and I felt myself be turned around to face a blurry figure. I couldn't see properly, and couldn't make out just whose face it was framed by long, black hair. I backed away quickly as they tried to pull me closer to them, my back hitting the shower wall with a painful thud, making me wince and spit out some of the water which was flooding my face.

"Gerard- Gerard, it's okay..." they attempted to reassure me, placing their hands on both of my shoulders now that I could not back away further. I was trapped like a bull in a cage, and it did nothing to ward off the panic attack currently wreaking through my body. My head was full of static and I couldn't place anything. Every touch felt dull and yet painful at the same time, and my senses were well past obscured. 

I was pulled tight to the person's chest, and I sunk to the shower floor, bringing them with me. I began to sob in their arms, my face buried against their neck. They whispered some form of consolation to me, but I couldn't make sense of the words. They sounded like nonsense vowels among the running of the water and my own cries, but that didn't stop the mystery person from whispering them directly into my ear. 

Had I been alone, it was likely that I would have stayed in that shower all night, possibly almost drowning from the water which would eventually run cold against my wrinkled skin. 

But with them, with the blurred mystery who stayed here with me, curled against the cold white tiles and both soaked by the shower spray, I was concentrating on the way their hands gripped the cool skin of my side instead of the static filling my head.


	6. It Isn't That Much Fun

I was laid on the grass in the courtyard alongside Pete, and we were watching the soft clouds flit through the sky above us, occasionally pointing out to each other any clouds which took amusing shapes.

"Once," Pete began, sounding utterly confident, "I saw a cloud that looked like Stalin."

"Stalin?" I asked, chuckling slightly at his ridiculousness.

"Yeah! Honest!" he said, sitting up slightly as if it would help him prove his point.

"You're wanting me to believe that you, Pete Wentz, once saw a cloud that took the shape of the long-dead Russian dictator Josef Stalin?" I laughed, shaking my head and pulling at the grass beside me.

"That's exactly what I'm saying!" he argued, nodding as if I had just agreed with him.

It was surprisingly hot outside today, and I pushed the sleeves of my sweater up past my elbows, completely uncaring about the horror film that seemed to lay beneath them. It wasn't like any of the other patients in a  _mental_   _hospital_ were particularly going to care that Gerard Way had scars all over his arms, right?

Wrong.

Mere seconds after I had pushed up my sleeves, Brendon walked the short distance between where he and Ryan had been previously curled up and the spot where me and Pete were laid.

"What's that?" he asked, gesturing towards my arms.

"What do you mean?" I asked, looking up at him and using my right hand to shield my eyes from the sun. This seemed to be a mistake, as Brendon grabbed my right arm as soon as I had lifted it.

"These." he demanded, shaking my arm slightly. I really did not want to discuss my history with him, and so attempted to play dumb, as always.

"I don't know, Brendon, I've always had them. They just appeared one day."

It seemed that that was the wrong answer, as Brendon dropped my arm, jumping back away from me, pointing towards me with one trembling arm.

"You... and Ryan!" he exclaimed, seeming not to find any further explanation necessary.

"What the fuck are you blabbering on about" Pete finally spoke up, and I tried my best to ignore whatever spiel he spat out after that about being part of the CIA. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ryan approaching us from where he had been previously watching Brendon. He came over to us, and laid his hands on his boyfriend's shoulders.

"Brenny... why don't you come back over here, yeah? Leave Gerard alone for a bit?" he coaxed, attempting to guide Brendon away.

"But  _Ryan-"_ he stressed, attempting to gesture between the two of us. Me and Ryan shared perplexed glances, and I could tell that Brendon was, once again, the only person who knew what the hell was going on in the weird brain of his.

Suddenly, Brendon took one of Ryan's arms in his, and yanked up the sleeve, causing Ryan to jump back violently. Brendon kept a strong grip on his now-exposed arm, however, and I could now see that, like my own, it was covered in thick, overlapping scars.

"Brendon, what the  _fuck_  are you doing?!" Ryan snapped, violently pulling his arm away from his boyfriend's grasp and tugging the sleeve back down his arm, before hugging it close to his chest.

"You and Gerard- you have the same marks!" he yelled, as if the fact that myself and Ryan shared shitty coping mechanisms was actual, rational reasoning as to why he was ragging our arms around as if we were merely dolls.

"Are you kidding me..." Ryan muttered, nudging the mud and grass with his shoe.

"What?" Pete asked, seemingly trying to assert the fact that he was actually still in this conversation.

"Brendon thinks that my scars are from being abducted by his aliens." Ryan explained, his arms wrapped around himself, looking directly at the ground.

"They  _are!"_ Brendon asserted. "You both have the same marks and that means you were both abducted by the same aliens!"

Ryan began to cry, and Pete was yelling at Brendon that he along with the rest of the CIA had conclusively proved that aliens do not in fact exist, and so his theory was wrong. In all of the commotion, I didn't even notice Frank approach our small group.

"What in the heck is going on here?" he asked, attempting to sound authoritative and failing miserably.

"Ryan and Gerard were abducted by the same alien!" Brendon informed him, attempting to point at both me and Ryan at the same time, while looking at Frank, resulting in him contorting his body in quite a strange manner.

"Is that so?" Frank asked, evidently amused. "And how do you know this?"

"They have the same marks..." the deluded boy whispered, seemingly more to himself than to anyone else.

"And what marks would they be?" Frank said, scanning my face for any response.

Neither me nor Ryan responded, and Frank was obviously looking for an answer from someone other than Brendon. It came down to Pete grabbing my arm by the elbow, and raising it in Pete's direction, for him to realise just what 'marks' Brendon had been referencing.

"Oh..." he gulped, concern evident on his face. "Well, Brendon, I don't think they're from aliens. It's up to Ryan and Gerard if they want to explain, but those aren't alien marks..." he trailed off, before turning his gaze to meet mine.   
"Gerard, Dr James wants to see you, I'll take you to her now."

I laughed at his statement, but got up and followed him anyway, wanting to be anywhere but around Brendon alien-boy Urie right now. It took me until after several turns down random corridors which definitely did  _not_  lead to Dr James' office to realise that she hadn't, in fact, asked to see me at all. Frank unlocked the door to an empty group therapy room, and ducked inside, with me following close behind. He grabbed two chairs, and placed them down facing each other. He sat on one, and looked at me expectantly.

"And what is this for, then...?" I asked, sitting down in the other chair across from Frank.

"Well..." he began, "I wanted to talk."

"About what?" I asked. Several things had happened in the past few days that would have been considered 'talk worthy', and I wasn't all too sure what he was referring to- the panic attack, the insomnia, the smoking, or the recently-discovered self harm.

Turns out, it was the latter.

"Your arms." he breathed, tucking a piece of hair behind his ear. I had a strange impulse to imitate the movement, but didn't relent. "How did they get like that?"

I rolled my eyes at him, before retorting with a simple, "Something tells me you already know the answer to that."

He laughed, shuffling slightly on his seat, moving so that he was sitting on his own feet.

"I wanted to hear it directly from you, though. Why did you do that to yourself? Don't you regret it? Is that why you're here?-" he reeled off questions at a mile a minute, and I struggled to keep up with his pace.

"First of all, slow down. I did it because my brain is fucked up and it made me happy. I don't regret it, I probably would have been even worse was it not for that, and besides, I did things that would make your hair curl before I came here. I'm not here because of that, though. It got even more fucked up than just cutting."

He nodded solemnly, as if he understood what I was trying to convey.

"I get it. Do you want to talk about this?" he asked, his hand finding its way to my knee again, just as it had the other night.

"I don't want to talk about any of this." I stated, looking up at him desperately. "Like I said, I just want to pretend. I want to pretend that I'm normal, just for a little bit."

"I wish I could pretend with you" he sighed, his thumb tracing delicate circles on my thigh as we both lusted after a universe in which we had met somewhere which wasn't a mental institute.


	7. You're Worse Than Nicotine

I never expected to be here; lying in bed past midnight, listening to the sound of Pete Wentz's soft breathing, and waiting for the change in depth which would signify he had fallen asleep. I felt like some sort of teenage girl waiting for her dad to fall asleep so she could sneak off and be with her boyfriend- which was obviously far from what I was doing. I just needed Pete to fall asleep so that I could slip out to see Frank without him asking any questions.

Okay, so I will admit that it was a little bit similar.

A wave of impatient relief washed over me as I heard Pete's breathing deepen, and light snores begin to float from his lungs. I stood up slowly, and walked silently over to the door, slipping through it as quietly as I could and making my way into the empty, dimly lit halls of the institute.

If you asked a thousand people where the scariest horror films are set, at least three would tell you that the halls of a mental asylum in the night was the place that made them shit themselves in terror. For me, however, this wasn't just some creepy-ass hospital; this was my home of the past year and three months. It seemed a hell of a lot longer to me, however. The 65 weeks I had spent in these halls had dragged on listlessly, unrelenting in their tedium. That was, however, until he turned up, with his bright eyes and his hopelessly hopeful smile and the way he held onto plastic water cups as if they could shatter. The way he held on to me as if I would shatter.

Frank had only worked at the hospital for around two weeks, and I was scared that at any point, Dr James would decide that he was competent enough to care for the other patients, and not just me. That would mean he would be attending others' therapy sessions, watching over everyone else, and not just me. Between Josh and Pierre's insanity, and Ryan and Brendon's constant tiffs, I'd hardly get any time alone with him. Me and Frank had been getting incredibly close in the past few days- he'd hug me when I had panic attacks to calm me down, and place his hand on my leg to reassure me that nothing bad would happen while I was with him. It was unprofessional, but it was what I needed. I hated the fact that it could be torn away from me at any point, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I pushed the idea of Frank dividing his attention between me and the other patients to the side for now, and turned into the courtyard, where I saw him smoking on the bench once again, waiting for me. I dropped down beside him, raising an eyebrow at his cigarette.

"What?" he asked defensively, turning and looking at me curiously.

"That" I stated, pointing at the cancer stick between his fingers, "is just teasing me."

"Aww, I'm sorry" he chuckled, examining the cigarette. "Should I put it out?"

"I think you should" I agreed.

"Well, we all do things we shouldn't sometimes" he laughed, before pressing the cigarette to his lips once again.

"You are such an ass" I told him, kicking the grass with my bare foot.

"Oh, what was that?" he asked, looking up at me.

"Nothing!" I smiled down at him, trying to look as sweet as possible. He chuckled at me, turning away and taking yet another drag from his cigarette. When he lowered it from his lips, I saw my chance and grabbed it from between his fingers, running a short distance away from him with it. He made a noise of exclamation before seemingly realising just what my intentions were.

"Gerard." he warned, standing up and trying to look threatening. "Don't."

I raised an eyebrow at him, before lifting the cigarette to my lips.

"Gerard!" he exclaimed, approaching me before realising it was too late. A wave of defeat washed over his eyes, and I pressed the thin stick to my lips, and inhaled.

It felt as if every nerve in my body was being awoken at once. I hadn't had a cigarette since I first set foot in this place, and this felt like a re-awakening of sorts. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I could feel goosebumps shoot up my arms.

"You fucking happy now?" he muttered, turning around and kicking the foot of the bench before sitting on it.

"Come back here and give me the fucking cigarette back." he said, rubbing his left eye with one hand.

"And why should I do that?" I asked challengingly. I'd only achieved a smoke; why would I give it up now?

"Because I'll give you your fucking own" he reasoned, pulling out a packet of Marlboro from his jacket pocket and sliding out a fresh cigarette from inside. He held it out to me, and I bought his own back to him, before taking the outstretched one from his hand. He lit my cigarette, before falling back onto the bench.

"You're gonna get me fired, I swear" he sighed, taking a drag from his smoke.

"I don't think they'd fire you for giving me a cigarette" I told him honestly, but he shook his head at me.

"Before I started working here, when they told me I was assigned to you- Dr James warned me that any slip up, and I'd be out of here. She told me that you were "so close", whatever the fuck that means- and she didn't want anyone, even me, messing that up. If she finds out I gave you a cigarette then I'm fucking dead. You just- you just can't tell anyone about this, okay?"

"Okay." I agreed solemnly, understanding that he needs his job. As much as I would love to run around screaming about just how fucking good this cigarette was, I would have to contain myself for the sake of Frank's employment.

"So then, why did you start smoking in the first place?" he asked me, and I groaned internally at what was sure to be only the beginning of an onslaught of questions.

"I have a little brother- Mikey, his name's Mikey- and when he was about fourteen, he made some shitty friends. They got him into all sorts of crap, like drinking and smoking and sneaking into bars. I was in his room one day, looking to take back the comic books that I knew for a fact he had stolen from me the week before, and I found a half-empty packet of cigarettes and a packet of matches on his floor. I took them, intending to bin them, but I forgot about them until I ended up alone in some shitty suburban park. I found them in my pocket, and decided it wouldn't hurt to maybe try one. One turned into five in an hour, and then a pack-a-week habit which drained away money worse than any gambling habit could-"

I wasn't sure how long I kept talking after that. I had never really told anyone this, because nobody had ever needed to ask. Mikey was there to experience it, and nobody else had ever known about my smoking. I had even managed to hide it from my parents while they were still relevant to my life. I didn't even know why I was telling him any of this stuff. I just wanted to.

It was easy, revealing all of this stuff to Frank. With anyone else I tended to be reserved, and quiet about what was actually happening in my world. But with him, it felt natural to share everything about myself. I wanted him to know everything about me.

And that thought was the one that terrified me the most.


	8. I Can't Breathe Without You

Tell me, how many ecstatic mental patients can you fit in a small people carrier?

The answer was four, and one pessimistic asshole to keep them all in check.

I was sat in the middle seat of the middle row in the glorified minibus, between Ryan and Pete. Hayley and Patrick were sat in the back seats, accompanied by an orderly between them whose name I had never cared to remember, but probably began with a B. 

Apparently I was Mr Popular today, as everyone seemed to want a piece of me. Pete had his head leant on my shoulder, Ryan was cuddled up with my left arm, Hayley was playing with my hair lazily, and Patrick had his arm slung over the seat, resting over Pete's neck and my chest. Even Frank was holding onto my right hand. "He gets scared in car rides'", he'd told the driver, who probably knew it was bullshit but didn't care enough to call him out on it.

The atmosphere was one of toddlers who had been told if they sat still long enough they'd get chocolate- they were all trying to be as still as possible, but everyone was practically squirming in their seats. I didn't understand why they were so excited, but I was glad we were actually going to be leaving the fucking hospital for once.

  
I did feel slightly bad, however, for the people we had left behind. They couldn't take everyone out, as some of us were just a little too crazy to be given a small amount of independence just yet- there was no way they were going to bring Josh and Pierre here, for example.

The person I felt the worst for was Brendon. When they had told him that Ryan was going, but he wasn't, he broke down in sobs. he yelled at Dr James, screaming at her to understand- "he's just not safe without me, they'll get him, they'll hurt him"- and I could tell it had hurt Ryan immensely to watch. I couldn't even begin to imagine how much it hurt him just how ill, how deluded by his imagination, his boyfriend was.

He cried. In fact, he had only recently stopped crying, and I feared that may have been due to the fact that he was now asleep. I nudged him slightly using the arm he was clinging to, and he stirred gently.

"Yeah?" he murmured, rubbing his eyes.

"Wake up, Ry," I told him, noticing how exhausted he looked and beginning to feel kind of bad.

"How far away are we from the fair?" he asked, sitting up straighter but continuing to hold onto my arm.

"About five minutes" Frank replied, lazily stroking circles into the side of my hand with his thumb. I found it hard to imagine that his arm wasn't aching now, what with the odd angle that it had been thrown backwards to cling onto me, but he wasn't complaining, and so neither was I. 

"Why did you wake me up already?" Ryan groaned, burying his face back into my side. I felt Hayley tug my hair sharply and I spun my head around to glare at her.

"Watch the hair." I warned, and she mumbled a meek 'sorry' in response.

"He woke you up because you were snoring really loud in your sleep, dumbass" Pete retorted, the lie dripping off of his tongue with ease.

"Shut up, Pete." I said, poking his side with my elbow, and after that the car fell into silence once again.

As we got out of the car, the unnamed orderly reeled off rules that he evidently expected us to both remember and follow. 

"Don't talk to any strangers.

Don't wander from your group

Don't go on rides without permission"

He droned on for a good fifteen minutes, and we were all visibly growing bored. As if it was a concluding thought, he turned and looked directly at Patrick, who now became reminiscent of a deer in the headlights of an oncoming car.

"What's your name?" he asked violently, and I could tell that had struck a chord with him. Patrick didn't like his lack of memory to be brought up, and we had all become accustomed to that. This orderly, however, had never encountered Patrick before now, and as such, didn't know how this would affect him.

"P-Pa-Pat-" he stuttered nervously, wringing his hands together.

"Well?" he demanded, looking impatient.

"Pat-Patrick Stump" he said halfheartedly,  as if he was afraid of getting the answer wrong.

"You're good. Now- groups. Patrick, Hayley, you're with me. Pete, Gerard, Ryan, you're with Frank." 

My heart lifted at that thought- I was able to spend an entire day with Frank, at a fair?

Sounds like a first date, a voice in the back of my head called out. I smothered that voice with a pillow and walked over to where Frank had taken his place beside the nameless orderly. Pete and Ryan followed me, and Hayley and Patrick slumped towards the crueler of the two. I felt bad for them, but it wasn't as if Frank could oversee us all at once. He could barely deal with me at the best of times.

The two groups walked into the fairground together, leaving the driver behind, but split when we had entered due to Ryan and Pete noticing a cotton candy vendor a small distance away. They both near-sprinted in her direction, and me and Frank had to jog to catch up to them. 

"Hey there!" she smiled, grabbing four sticks from under the desk. "You wanting some cotton candy? It's a dollar each"

Ryan and Pete looked up at Frank hopefully, and he dug into his pocket and brought out $4, handing it to the woman and laughing as the two began to beam like children. Pete was tugging on Ryan's sleeve impatiently, and Ryan was tapping his feet to an inaudible beat and biting his lip in anticipation.

While I had been distracted by Ryan and Pete, the cotton candy woman had begun flirting with Frank. I felt a strong need to hurt her as I saw her painted fingers brush against his upper arm as she laughed at whatever it was he had said, and I also wanted to burn the piece of paper she was now obviously writing her phone number on. 

Pete and Ryan, who had by now been handed their cotton candy, seemed to want to take advantage of Frank's distraction.

"Let's go in there" Pete suggested, pointing to a large tent with the words "Hall Of Mirrors" painted elaborately above the entrance. Ryan nodded in agreement, and I looked at him apprehensively. He wasn't usually one to disobey rules at all, let alone agree with the crazy schemes Pete seemed to think up on the daily.

"I want to prove I don't need Brendon to be safe." Ryan explained, seemingly reading my look deeper than I thought he could. "I know he's crazy, and I know none of it is real, the aliens and shit, but I'm still scared. I love him so much that I can't help but take in what he says, and sometimes I begin to think it's true. I want to prove I don't need Brendon or the institute to be safe."

"Okay..." I agreed, understanding Ryan's need to prove himself. "But not for long. Frank's gonna be so pissed..." 

And so we walked into the house of mirrors, with Pete whispering under his breath something about a folie à deux, whatever the hell that even meant.

I didn't know what I expected. I'd never been to a fair before, let alone encountered a hall of mirrors. Whatever I had preempted, it certainly wasn't what I was presented with; several images of myself, twisted and contorted in too many different ways to count. The gruesome depictions of myself laughed, taunting my pain as they made my skin crawl and my hairs stand on end. My chest tightened, and my lungs were drowning in the lack of oxygen. My arms itched and felt heavy, and I felt my back scream in tingles as I fell against the ground of the tent, curling into myself as to escape the twisted imagery. Tears streamed from my eyes and ran horizontally down my face, pooling together beside me on the ground, only one word, one name, tearing out from my lungs.

I don't know when Frank noticed we were missing from beside him.

I don't know when he felt it too, the tightening of his chest, the itching of his arms.

I don't know when he began to scream our names; ringing out empty amongst the throng of people.

I don't know when he found me there, curled in on myself and screaming out for him.

I don't know when he took me back to the institute.

But I knew when I woke up in his arms.

And I definitely knew I wasn't dreaming when I heard him mumble "I love you".


	9. When You See My Face (Hope It Gives You Hell)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Mikey to brighten you guys' day :)

I awoke to a cold, empty bed. For a second, I thought maybe I had hallucinated his presence, maybe he had never wrapped me in his arms, soothed my terror and told me he loved me. I tried to suppress the intruding thoughts of loneliness as I opened my eyes and saw a small, quickly scrawled note thrown beside me. The first line had been quite violently scribbled out, as if the writer did not want it to be read.

"I left because I didn't want Pete to walk in and find me with you. Might've looked suspicious. Come to breakfast when you wake up, I'm sorry about what happened at the fair -Frank x"

I sighed at the fact he had felt the compulsion to apologize. If anyone should be sorry, it should have been me. After all, I was the one who had left his side after having been told explicitly not to. However, I couldn't just stand there while he flirted with some girl who smelt like candyfloss and country air- even the thought of it now made me want to punch her in the face.

I dragged myself out of bed, and noted that Pete's looked untouched before pulling on something which vaguely resembled presentable clothing and slumping towards the cafeteria. 

I hadn't even gotten half way there before I heard someone yelling my name. I spun around to identify the speaker, and was met with an out-of-breath Brendon Urie, practically dragging Ryan along with him, hands clenched together in a manner that says Brendon still wasn't taking Ryan's leaving too well.

"What's up?" I asked, spinning slowly and proceeding to walk, assuming correctly that they would follow me. 

"You..." Brendon breathed, attempting to catch his breath. "Was worried... Frank said... to leave you..."

"Frank said?" I asked, wondering when Frank Whatever-His-Last-Name-Was had become the sole authority on whether or not my friends could see me or not.

"Frank told everyone that the first person to disturb your sleep would get it in the neck. He looked like he'd been crying but he was angry, man. It made him even scarier. Pete slept in Patrick's room because he was that scared of disturbing you and facing Frank's wrath." The explanation came from Ryan, who surprisingly, had working lungs at the current moment.

"Brendon, you okay?" I asked, ducking my head slightly in a stereotypical worried-mother move.

"'m fine" he reassured me, before Ryan cut in with a real explanation.

"He was thinking about me getting abducted from the fair. I told him what happened in the House of Mirrors."

"They could've gotten you..." Brendon murmured,  hiding his bashful cheeks under his fringe. 

"But they didn't." Ryan reassured, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. 

We eventually came to the cafeteria doors, pushing them open to reveal the typical scene. Huddled around one table was Patrick, Pete, Bob, Josh and Pierre. The two Canadians were staring at today's pasta, wondering what message they could receive from the Beyond, whereas the others were merely eating as if nothing was going on around them. 

I sat down besides Pete, who instantly flung his arms around me, and Brendon and Ryan sat opposite, strategically avoiding the tomato stains.

"I was so scared you weren't gonna be okay" Pete whispered into my neck, and I wrapped my arms tight around him, knowing that the best way to console him was to hold him close. I almost missed it when he added to the end, "I promise I'm not lying this time." 

\--

It was visiting hours, and so, like every week, I was sat in the hard plastic chair, awaiting my younger brother Mikey to arrive for the first time in five weeks and relay his fanciful tales of the outside world. This time, I realized, I'd be able to tell him stories too. That would be better than updating him on this week's Spaghetti News.

Mikey was late. Mikey was always late. He turned up half an hour later than he was supposed to every week, without fail, with heaving breath and some new excuse. It was okay though- those thirty minutes were the ones I got to spend watching my friends with people who weren't considered Government-Officiated Crazy. 

Brendon and Ryan were together, Ryan perched on Brendon's knee, talking to Brendon's parents seeing as his own never bothered to show. Ryan never talked about his parents, but I was fairly sure they were a contributing factor to why he was here in the first place. 

Josh met with the same guy every week. I didn't know much about the brown haired stranger, as Josh outright refused to speak about him, but I was fairly sure his name was Matt, and that he was the one who dyed Josh's fringe blue. I was also under the impression that they were dating, or at least had been at some point, as they clutched at the other's hands as if their lives depended on each other. 

Patrick was sat across from some guy with wildly curly hair, who strangely I hadn't actually seen before. Patrick didn't often have visitors. Patrick didn't have anyone, and that was part of the problem. There was nobody to tell him who he was, because nobody knew who he was.

I wasn't sure how long I had been sat watching the others before a familiar figure dropped down in the seat in front of me, brown hair jutting out awkwardly under a beanie and around his glasses.

"Mikey!" I cheered excitedly, shuffling in my seat slightly like a toddler. 

"Hey, Gerard" he laughed, leaning back slightly.

"How's the Outside?" I asked with a knowing tone to my voice. Mikey hated it when I referred to the outside world as if it was different to inside the Institute, but he didn't understand how they were two different worlds.

"Not awful. I moved out like I said a few weeks ago- that's why I couldn't be here for a while, I was sorting all of that out. And also there's this girl from the coffee shop down the road who is just so cute- I think her name is Alice, but I'm not a hundred percent sure- but anyway, she's just so perfect and I really want to ask her out but I'm way too scared. What should I do, Gee? Should I ask her on a date?" his words came out all too quickly and in a blur, but after twenty years of being related to Mikey Way, I could make out every word.

"I think you should find out her name first, Mikes." I laughed, shaking my head at how head over heels he seemed to be about this girl he barely knew. If only I knew how he would be reacting the same way to me only moments later.

"So, anything interesting happen in this place lately?" he asked, evidently expecting my usual answer of a shrug. He seemed surprised when I became alert at that, shuffling again in my seat and lacing my hands together on the table.

"Well, this new guy started working here. His name's Frank and he's super cool- he's only eighteen and he has a shit ton of tattoos, y'know? Like that's badass. Anyway so because he's new he's only assigned to me and I like that because I get to talk to him all the time and he's really super cool and I just like him a lot and-" Mikey cut me off with a laugh.

"Gerard, are you sure this like of yours is platonic? It sounds a hell of a lot like you're in love with the guy. How long has he worked here?"

"I dunno- I wasn't keeping track. Three- maybe four weeks?" I genuinely wasn't sure- it was hard to tell the passing of time in this place.

"I leave you alone for five weeks and you fall in love with the first kid that wanders in here." He laughed, shaking his head at me, just as I had for him.

We spoke about Frank for the next half hour, Mikey wanting to know every detail about him, and I began to realize just how much I had fallen for him in the short amount of time he had worked here. I hadn't even noticed it, but my stomach flipped at the mere mention of his name. It seemed to ache being away from him for extended periods of time, and the only thing that would calm me from a panic attack was his arms around me.

Fuck.

Oh, absolute fuck.

I didn't just like Frank-

I was head over heels in love with him. 

And that thought was just fucking terrifying.

An orderly shouted from one end of the room that visiting hours were now ending, and so could the visitors please leave the institute, and sign out on their way out of the building. This meant that I would have to stop rambling about Frank, and Mikey would have to leave me behind in this place for another week. As soon as he turned out of the door, I bolted from the room, and quickly made my way to Dr James' office. I knocked on the door sharply before entering, and approached her at her desk.

"Gerard?" she asked, seeming startled. 

"I can't have Frank working with me any more. You need to give him to someone else. You need to give him to Ryan or something instead."

"And why is that?" she asked, head tilted slightly to one side.

"I just- I can't be near him any more."


	10. You Feel So LA

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the shortest chapter of this fic, and also the last daily update. After this, updates will be every Thursday!

It was cold, I was bitter, and I had no fucking clue where Frank was. Dr James had refused to transfer Frank to another patient, meaning I was stuck with falling in love with the asshole. It was well past midnight, and by this time Frank was usually outside on the stupid bench with me, sharing his cigarettes and bitching about how I was going to get him fired. It's funny how I even missed his complaining when he wasn't here.

I heard the door to the courtyard slide open, and out slipped Frank.

"You're late." I muttered, wrongly expecting no reaction. 

"Yeah? Well, I thought you'd be happy about that." He spat, sitting as far away from me on the bench as possible and lighting up a cigarette, not even glancing over to offer me one. 

"What?" I asked, attempting to play naive when I knew full well what had happened- Dr James had told Frank about what I had said. The utter  _bitch_.

"Well, y'know, seeing as you _just can't be near_  me, I thought you'd be happy if I just didn't show up." He laughed, he actually laughed, as if he found what I had said to Dr James absolutely hilarious.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" I asked, trying my best to mend together the broken pieces of Frank and Gerard which I had smashed to the ground.

"I don't know, Gerard- what is it supposed to mean? Because I thought we were friends. I thought- fuck, I don't even know what I thought. But it sure as hell wasn't that you wanted rid of me." He seemed genuinely distressed by this point, and looked up at me desperately. "What did I do, Gerard? What did I do?"

"You didn't do anything-" I tried to explain, but he merely cut me off.

" _Bullshit_!" he yelled, "Just tell me what I did and I- I can fix it!"

"I just- I just can't be near you! It's not good for me right now!" I tried to explain, but he didn't understand; he  _couldn't_ understand.

"You know what's not good for  _me_? You fucking with my head like this- why don't you just tell me!" he stressed, rubbing his tired eyes.

"I can't tell you..." I mumbled. I just wanted the whole subject dropped, I wanted everything to go back to how it was before I realized that I was so fucking in love with this eighteen year old  _kid_.

And as if God was fucking applauding me, as soon as I came to that realization, the damn heavens opened. Thunder broke through the air, and rain began to pour down hard and fast.

"Fucking get inside-" Frank began, getting up from the bench and reaching the door before stopping in his tracks and letting out a soft "oh". 

"What?" I asked nervously, not sure that I wanted to know what was stopping me from staying dry.

"The door's locked itself."

I hurried over to Frank, and he pulled me into the corner of the courtyard,.The rain was barely reaching us, but still able to get us wet, and he wrapped his arms around me in anticipation of my fear.

"Am I right in assuming you don't like thunderstorms?" he sighed, and I nodded solemnly, my head pressed to his neck, as if I could hide from the storm. 

Frank attempted to whisper soothing words into my ear, but I could tell he was still irrevocably  _pissed_ at me. He wanted to know why I had been such an asshole in doing what I did, and in any other circumstance, I would have told him. But this was something I just had to keep a secret, from him especially.

But what if I didn't have to? I couldn't help but think of just what would actually happen if I told Frank. The worst case scenario would be that he wouldn't reciprocate those feelings and he'd ask to be transferred to another patient. And that was what I had wanted any way, wasn't it? so surely, it would be the same either way?

It was an internal crisis in the rain. On one hand, I wished I could just kiss the everloving  _fuck_ out of Frank, but on the other, I was terrified of the way he would react if I did just that.

Has anyone ever told you that I, Gerard Way, am the worlds' worst advice giver? I am also the worlds worst advice taker, and so when these two factors come together, and I start attempting to take my own advice, that is when I am truly fucked. Because holy shit, I know I shouldn't have been, but here I was, looking Frank directly in those hazel eyes and leaning in to kiss him. 

And holy shit, I was kissing him, and holy shit, he wasn't slapping me right now, and  _holy fucking shit_ , Frank was kissing me back. If it wasn't for the fact that my face was currently attached to his, I think I would have literally danced in excitement.

We both pulled away, an uncertain and confused air filling the space around us. I decided to clear up his thoughts immediately, adamant that this was the one thing I was  _not_ going to fuck up. I could get this right.

"That. That's why. Because I think I love you. I think I love you and I'm fucking scared."

"That makes two of us" he breathed.


	11. You'll Be Just Another Regret

It was my least favourite day of the week- a  _Sunday_. This particular Sunday, however, just happened to be the one I had welcomed in by kissing Frank in its early hours. Speaking of Frank, he was sat across the room, beside Dr James, seeming uncomfortable with the current situation. Sunday brought along group therapy, which was my own personal hell. The eleven patients in our group had to sit around a ridiculously over-sized table, with Dr James and two orderlies taking up one side to themselves. In this particular session, the two orderlies happened to be Frank, and Gabe, who cared for Pierre and Josh more than the rest of us, due to the more demanding nature of their conditions.

I was sat between Pete and Bob, the former of the two having leant his head on my shoulder in the usual position, with his hand linked in Patrick's under the table. Frank was visibly unhappy with him leaning on me in such a way, but I wasn't going to tell him to move and be branded an asshole.

The room consisted of the usual suspects- Ryan- who, for once,  _wasn't_  crying- and Brendon were sat together, practically sharing the same chair, on the left side of the table, with Patrick awkwardly sat on the corner, closer to Pete than Ryan. Pete, myself, Bob, and Josh were on the longest end of the table, sitting directly opposite Dr James and her two henchmen. On the right, Pierre, Alex, Jesse, and Hayley were slouched together, in some sort of "Gerard doesn't interact with us very often" club. 

Dr James was droning on about some sort of "fight or flight" reaction system that I was fairly sure everyone in the room already knew about, and most of the room had tuned out at this point. It was only when Gabe stood up and brought biscuits to the table, did our attentions peak.

"Oh, I'm glad you're all awake!" she laughed sarcastically, ceasing whatever monologue she was in the middle of and looking around the room.

"Pete, get up off of Gerard, you're not a baby." she scolded, collating various papers from the table.

"My dad could get you fired." he retorted, retrieving his head from my shoulder nonetheless.

"I'm sure he could, if you knew who he was." Dr James was harsh, and most likely incredibly unprofessional, but she knew exactly how to get Pete to stop talking. I kind of resented her for that; she acted as if he was lying to be cruel, when in actual fact Pete lied because he didn't know any better. It was his shield, it was how he protected himself from the outside word. If Pete was the President's son, or an astronaut, or if he was the inventor of the modern television, he couldn't be hurt by reality.

Dr James didn't care about that. Dr James didn't care about Pete. Dr James cared about success ratios and her monthly salary more than the defense mechanisms of some scared nineteen year old.

And that is why she didn't react when Pete got up, tears welling in his eyes, and stormed out of the room.

I followed after him quickly, and found two other sets of footsteps behind me. I didn't bother to look at who was following us, making consoling Pete my only goal. He crashed open the door to our room, and I watched as he collapsed onto his bed. I rushed in too, sitting down tentatively on the end of his bed, stroking his hair with one hand as he sobbed.

I felt the bed dip at the other end, and looked up to see an incredibly concerned Patrick hurrying over to Pete's huddled form, whispering a thousand comforts which I simply couldn't hear. Patrick always tried his hardest with Pete, always wanting to be close to him, to be the one he went to when he needed someone. Sometimes I felt guilty for being in the middle of that, but it couldn't be helped.

Someone cleared their throat in the doorway, and a familiar voice called out to me.

"It looks like Pete's being cared for, Gerard. Will you come with me for a second?"

And with that, my feet made the decision for me, and before I could ensure Pete would be fine with Patrick, I had practically skipped out of the door and into the corridor with Frank in tow. He lead me into an empty meeting room, one which I remarked as possibly the same one he had ushered me into about two weeks prior. 

"We need to talk..." was the first thing that left his lips as he shut the door beside him. I could feel my stomach tie in knots as every possibility flew through my head.

_They know about the kiss. Frank was leaving. Frank was joking when he said he thought he loved me. Frank hated me. I was being moved. I would never get to see Frank again-_

"What about?" I finally asked, the words half-choked in my throat. I was scared, and it must have been evident, because Frank pulled two chairs from the corner of the room, gesturing for me to sit down and resting his hand on my leg when I did so.

"Last night," he began, evidently unsure as to where exactly he was going with this, "was a mistake."

I felt my heart plummet as he said that, and I physically shrank. He noticed, and was quick to apologize.

"I'm sorry," he rushed, looking alert, "I didn't mean it like that. I mean we can't do that again, I mean..."

"You mean you lied." I stated, kicking the carpet with my foot, "when you said you had feelings for me, that was a lie then."

"No- I mean-" he stumbled, cutting himself off as he tripped over his words. "It's not like we _love_  each other Gerard, don't be  _crazy_ \- we've known each other for a month, that's impossible-"

"So now I'm crazy?" I accused, standing up and crossing my arms in a much less than casual manner.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, but- look, you have to know what I mean. It's lust, that's all. We're definitely not in love with each other and it was definitely a bad idea to kiss. I could get  _fired_ , Gerard-"

"You always say that! Everything could get you fucking fired!" I stressed, throwing my arms up to accentuate my point. "Cookies could get you fired, cigarettes could get you fired,  _I_  could get you fired- but maybe I'm just the problem anyway? Is that right?"

I was hurting him, and I could tell. But I didn't care. I was overreacting, and I knew it. But in my head, I had finally gotten Frank. I had him now, and I didn't want to let him go.

"Please, Gerard..." he implored, looking up at me hopefully. "You need to understand. You don't love me, okay? I'm just the first person to pay any attention to you. You don't even know my last name, for Pete's sake- it's Iero, by the way. My last name is Iero. You didn't even know that, how can you love me if you don't know my last name?"

"Frank Iero..." I murmured, trying out the unfamiliar vowels. It was a name I never wanted to get used to saying; I never wanted the novelty to wear.

Frank continued to look up at me with wide eyes, pleading me to understand his perspective. It wasn't long until I cracked.

"Okay, I- I guess we could just... forget about it?" I said, leaving the end a question out of uncertainty. Frank seemed more than happy with that answer, however.

"Yes- fuck, yes. We can just forget it, okay? It never happened." he smiled, and with that he stood up, and exited the room, leaving me behind. Leaving me to forget.

_But how was I supposed to forget the one thing that made me happy?_


	12. Twelve - I Taste You On My Lips and I Can't Get Rid Of You

It had been a week since Frank had left me to forget about everything that had happened. I was laid on the sofa in the rec room, wishing that the cracks in the leather would simply expand and swallow me whole. Alas, that did not happen. Pete was sat on the floor beside me, whispering to a very distracted Patrick about how his mom was a priest who was totally okay with gay people, and as such would be super stoked to marry Ryan and Brendon, who were huddled together in the opposite corner of the room as they often tended to be.

The television was playing some rerun of Family Feud, and Pierre was attempting to guess which answers would win the contestants prizes. Needless to say, he was wrong every time, which usually resulted in him receiving an unannounced kick to the leg by a disgruntled Josh.

Frank was slumped against the wall on the other side of the room, one foot pressed against it to support himself. It was evident from his posture that he didn't want to be there- his arms were crossed, and he was glaring at the ground as if he could create a hole through which he could escape. I didn't really understand why he was acting this way- surely, if he wanted to forget anything had ever happened, he should go back to acting how we were before? I was perplexed as to how he thought this was any better than other possibilities. 

The air between us was cold and bitter. We barely spoke, and when we did, his pleasant nature was forced, and his words monosyllabic and dry for the most part. I began to miss the Frank I had first met- although he was scared of me, he still actually spoke to me as if he cared. Because then, he had cared. He had just started his new job with bright eyes and an almost impeccable adherence to the rules- he'd even thought that giving me cookies was a risk. It was a clean slate compared to the smoke and secrets and solitude we shared now. I'd rather have anything than this.

Nevertheless, here we were, almost staring each other down across the pool table. The others had definitely detected the animosity in the air between us, but as of now nobody had commented on it.

It seemed that Family Feud was no longer interesting to Pierre- that, or he was sick of being kicked by Josh- and he turned suddenly to Frank, catching his gaze quickly with a simple statement that caused a fit of what could be called jealousy to erupt under my skin.

"Frank, did you know you're incredibly pretty?"

His head shot up in an instant, and he looked confused by the small Canadian boy's sudden outburst.

"Excuse me...?" he asked, seeming uncertain as to what to do.

"You heard him, Frank, you're pretty!" I laughed, throwing my head back and proclaiming his attractiveness in an overly sarcastic manner despite the truth to the statement.

"Well thanks Pierre, that's... that's nice to know." he concluded, nodding slightly.

"I just wanted you to know... my blankets told me you don't always feel pretty. I wanted you to know you are..." 

"I'm sure Frank knows he's incredibly pretty." I continued, and I could tell that Frank was becoming irritated by my persistence. 

"That's enough now, Gerard." he stated, shuffling slightly against the wall.

"Whatever you said, pretty boy..." i sighed dramatically, moving my attention over to the two boys sat on the floor beside me.

Patrick was clutching the old Gameboy Color he had found at the bottom of the storage cupboard in his first week. He carried it around almost everywhere with him, and was now currently playing whatever version of Pokémon he had been able to find, with Pete watching the simple game with an impressive amount of interest. Patrick suddenly exclaimed loudly at the screen, and I nudged his shoulder with my toe to catch his attention.

"I keep forgetting this gym leader uses water Pokémon..." he mumbled, blushing lightly and hanging his head in shame.

"Who did you bring?" I asked him, knowing the answer before he had even opened his mouth.

"My fire Pokémon..."

Brendon started laughing across the room, and I grabbed a cushion from the sofa and threw it at him, successfully hitting him square in the face and resulting in Frank shooting me a death-glare. Ryan took the cushion from Brendon's face and began to hit his arm with it in an attempt to get him to stop laughing, murmuring something along the lines of "what have I said about being nice to people" repeatedly. While Frank knew Ryan wasn't being violent, he had to break up the two anyway, and did so very begrudgingly, throwing the cushion back at me and hitting me in the face.

"It's okay Patrick" I soothed, before sensing an opportunity to get back at a certain black haired asshole who was now stood smugly beside the television. "We're all a little forgetful sometimes, aren't we Frank?"

"Wh-what?" he faltered, evidently startled by me directly addressing him. As if it was my fault that he had interpreted 'forgetting' as ignoring my existence completely.

"I said- we're all forgetful sometimes, aren't we? Especially you, pretty boy." I recalled the earlier joke, just to add insult to injury.

"Yeah- sure- whatever you say..." he sighed, walking over and dropping himself down on the opposite end of the sofa, causing me to have to move my legs in fear of having them broken. "I'm more so dumb than forgetful, but I guess whatever works for you..." he attempted to laugh it off to the others, but I knew that his words were aimed at me. I wondered if this was possibly an indicator that things might go back to normal with Frank. 

It wasn't long until the silence we had lulled back into became filled with a low buzzing noise, signalling that it was 10pm, and as such we all had to go to our rooms and sleep. I got up from the couch, kicking Frank slightly as I did so, and extended an arm to Pete to help him up. He took it, and we began walking the short distance from the Rec Room to our bedroom.

"Gerard?" he asked quietly, the sound of my name almost lost between us.

"Yeah, Pete?" I asked as we reached our room, opening the door and being the first one to enter.

"What's going on with you and Frank?"

"What-what do you mean?" I asked tentatively, retrieving pyjamas from my small chest of drawers. 

"I don't know, you just... you seem like you're upset with him. Or he's upset with you. I thought you were friends?" Pete seemed confused, or possibly defensive of me. He had never had to battle for my affection before Frank arrived, and as such he wasn't Frank's biggest fan.

"We're not friends." I retorted, changing and climbing into bed. "He's assigned to babysit me- we're friendly, but we're not friends."

"Oh." Pete whispered, turning off the light and getting into his own bed. "So there's nothing going on? I can get people to sort him out if you-"

"There's nothing going on" I interrupted, breaking off his speech before he could fall too far into a delusion that he became unco-operable.  

"Promise?"

"Promise" I lied.

"And if anything does happen... you'll tell me, right?" he concluded.

"Of course I will." I lied again.


	13. Thirteen - I Don't Think That I'm Okay

 

I didn't let up on the pretty jokes. It wasn't that I was intentionally trying to make him hate me, I just craved the reaction it provoked from him. It was lunchtime, and Frank was begrudgingly sat at our table, beside Ryan and opposite me. Gabe was also there, due to the fact that Pierre had decided that not only was spaghetti excellent for wall messages, but so was the ketchup splatters made when chicken nuggets dipped in said sauce were thrown repeatedly at white plaster walls. As such, he was now being monitored for virtually every meal, and I wondered how long it would be before they resorted to feeding him like a baby.

Frank had long since finished his meal, and was currently deeply interested in the ceiling tiles of the lunch hall. He had his long hair tucked behind his ears, and I began to wonder whether or not he was doing this intentionally to mess with me or not. He surely had to know how perfect he looked in that very moment, his wide eyes gazing up at the ceiling and his mouth slightly ajar, lips moving to form the shapes of endless numbers as he counted the tiles overhead. He was pretty when he was avoiding me, and so I told him exactly that.

"Huh?" he asked, his head dropping down to look at me as he inquired as to just what it was I had said when he had not been paying attention.

"I said, you're pretty when you're avoiding me." I repeated. This time not only Frank, but also Ryan, heard what I had said, resulting in the former blushing a deep shade of scarlet and the latter breaking into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. 

"I wasn't avoiding you." He protested dully, shifting in his seat under the persecuting glares of both me and Ryan. We were smug in feeling that we had the upper hand, before he turned to the boy next to him and spoke seven unprofessional words which would make me want to throttle him.

"Ryan, aren't you going to eat that?" he gestured to the young boy's plate, which was almost untouched. At best, he had eaten half of a chicken nugget. Ryan was currently experiencing a rough patch with his eating disorder, and this was something that we all knew, but none of us commented on. It was some unspoken rule- we just didn't bring shit like that up. We didn't mention when Ryan didn't eat, we didn't get too mad when Pete lied, we didn't try and convince Brendon his aliens weren't real- we were all in the same boat together, and commenting upon each others' problems would only bring us further down and away from our goal of getting the hell out of this place. It was because of this, that the whole table turned to Frank when those words left his lips.

Brendon seemed angrier than I had ever seen him. Somehow, this small boy seemed to encompass the anger of everyone currently gathered and concentrate it into one person. If there was anyone who cared about Ryan Ross to the stars and back- literally- it was Brendon Urie.

"What the fuck did you just say?" Brendon spat, standing up from the table and approaching Frank, his fists clenched beside him.

"I was just asking Ryan here why he's not eating." Frank stated, as if it was the simplest thing on earth. I wasn't sure why he was doing this- I had never seen him be this cruel before, especially not to someone like Ryan- he was only fifteen years old, for God's sake. 

But Frank held the power in this situation, and I had a very bad feeling that he knew that very well.

"You know full well why he isn't eating. Don't be an asshole." I snapped, finally speaking up to protect my friend as he attempted to calm his boyfriend down. Brendon looked ready to hit Frank, which would undoubtedly hold too many negative connotations to even consider for a second.

"Don't be an ass to me then." Frank countered, as if it was the most logical explanation in the world, and totally explained just why he was mocking a teenage boy's health.

"Is that what this is? Some sick game of back-and-forth? I say something slightly teasing and you point out a kid's eating disorder?" I was more than angry- I wasn't sure who Frank was after this conversation. 

I was never more thankful for the dull buzzing sound that resonated throughout the hall to tell us all that it was time for us to move from the lunch hall to the courtyard. I was the first person to move, taking my empty tray and depositing it on the rack before leaving the hall, storming out and into the outside in a more than dramatic way. 

Ryan was the first person to emerge from the doors after me. He hurried over to me, and I wrapped my arms around him protectively. I was one of the oldest in this entire institution, which caused me to feel endlessly responsible for the well-being of the younger patients, particularly the ones like Ryan, who were still kids in more than just age. 

"Are you alright?" I asked in a hushed tone, attempting to be comforting as I felt him shake in my arms.

"I- I think so?" he replied, more of a question than an answer. "Why did he say that?"

"He's being an idiot. He'll snap out of it." I reassured him, although I wasn't quite sure if what I was saying was true. I hoped he'd snap out of it.

The rest of our group began to filter through the courtyard door as I continued to hold Ryan. I began to grow quite worried as I realized that Brendon had not yet joined us. It wasn't often that he and Ryan were apart, which was mostly due to Brendon's alien paranoia. 

He was last through the door around ten minutes later, and Ryan quickly replaced my arms with his, seeking the care of his boyfriend more than that of me, understandably. I resigned myself to sitting on the bench in the middle of the grass, taking Frank's usual place on the right hand side merely out of spite for him, if he even came outside. 

Unsurprisingly, Frank didn't come outside. I didn't see him again that day until we had been dismissed from scheduled events for the day, and so a small group had gathered in mine and Pete's room, as we often did. I was sat on my bed with Brendon, Ryan and Bob, and Pete and Patrick were sat on Pete's. Pierre and Josh were laid on their backs on our floor, pointing at the ceiling and pretending to stargaze. Not long after Pete had arrived, he had somehow acquired glow-in-the-dark stars, and had stuck them to our ceiling without so much as consulting me.

A knock interrupted the peaceful jokes we had been sharing, and we all stilled in confusion before Frank's head emerged from behind the door

"Gerard, can we speak for a moment please?" he asked, and I sighed heavily, wishing to make my reluctance clear before I got up and followed him out into the corridor.

Frank escorted me to the rec room, which was thankfully both empty and not too far from mine and Pete's room. When we got inside, I didn't even give him time to speak.

"I hope you know I'm fucking pissed at you, pretty boy." I spat, eager to get across just how angry I was with the other man before he could even begin to make excuses for his behaviour.

"I know..." he sighed, seemingly not even attempting to defend himself as he shut the door behind him.  "Dr James gave me a half hour lecture on patient care- as if she's not a bitch herself. I seem to remember her making Pete cry the other day, or am I going crazy too?" he chuckled at that, shaking his head slightly as if to make light of the situation

"Don't say that." I snapped at him. "You're not crazy. We're the crazy ones- you seemed to make that divide pretty clear earlier." I crossed my arms as I stared him down, as if we were in some modern re-make of a wild west film. Instead of a sherrif and a cowboy, we were the crazy guy and his orderly- instead of an American desert, our setting was the brightly coloured rec room of a mental institute. 

"Look-" he started, obviously trying hard to make me crack. "I'm sorry for what I said about Ryan, okay? I know that was fucking shitty- I just wasn't thinking. I wanted to get back at you for calling me pretty boy, and him for laughing- it was the easiest ammunition I had."

"You shouldn't just pick your battles." I spat, the venom in my words pooling through every syllable. "You should pick your fucking weapons too."

"Poetic," he stated shortly, seeming bored by my anger. 

"Ryan's fifteen-"

"You think I don't know that?!" he was shouting suddenly- I wasn't all too sure what exactly had sparked his anger, but I fed off of it, and played it to my advantage.

"Well, it seems you must have forgotten! You're good at that, aren't you pretty boy? Forgetting ev-"

I wasn't able to finish my sentence as my back hit the wall, and Frank pressed his lips to mine harshly, uttering five words that let me know I had won the showdown.

"Forgetting was a shitty idea."


	14. Fix Me, I'm Defective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I THINK I FORGOT TO UPDATE ON THURSDAY? what the fuck, me

It was a Friday afternoon, which meant that Brendon was in therapy, and Ryan was alone for a few hours. As such, I was in his and Brendon's room to keep him company. I liked the two's room more than my own, mostly due to the unique way they had decorated it. Brendon's parents often brought small decorations in for the two to hang on their walls, and the small quarters had quickly become full of personality. Unsurprisingly, a large percentage of the posters and small objects were space themed- planet posters and stickers adorned the walls, alongside quotes about space and Brendon's scrawled drawings of the several species of alien he claimed to have met. 

A mobile of the solar system hung from the ceiling above the bed, and a star-covered lampshade encased the light bulb in the room, casting the glow of hundreds of tiny stars along the walls when the sun went down. 

The two had pushed their twin beds together, and it wasn't hard to tell which comforter was who's- Brendon's had a cartoon cover, decorated with astronauts, oddly-coloured planets, and rocket ships. Ryan's, on the other hand, was the standard white that everyone was provided with. I wondered why he hadn't asked Brendon's parents to buy him his own cover, as they seemed to like him enough to not mind. Even Mikey had brought me Star Wars bed sheets when I requested them, and he wasn't exactly renowned for his helpfulness. It may have seemed childish, but I was willing to sacrifice any maturity I may have had in order to keep at least a small sense of normalcy and sanity in the institute. Everything in the building was white and vapid, and any source of colour and creativity was necessary to prevent the days blurring together and slowly losing yourself inside the plain walls.

Ryan was laid on his back on his side of the bed, his thin arm outstretched towards the ceiling as he bent his fingers one by one before lifting them back up again.

"What on earth are you doing?" I inquired, breaking the silence that had formed over the past few minutes.

"I'm trying to see how long it'll take for me to lose feeling in my fingers." he stated, as if it were the simplest and most logical thing he could be doing at that very moment. I began to laugh, and he sat up to join me, smirking slightly before laughing, "I'm bored! There's nothing to do when Brendon isn't here."

"Or  _no one_ ," I quipped, scrunching up my face as Ryan hit me with Brendon's pillow in order to prevent me from speaking again and embarrassing him further, before he collapsed back onto the bed again, replacing the pillow behind his head.

"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked, instantly switching from teasing to protective as I saw the suddenly despondent look on Ryan's face.

"I just keep thinking about what Frank said." he admitted, crossing his arms across his body and effectively hugging himself. I sighed, having figured I would receive such a response, before attempting to form together the words to explain to Ryan just why Frank had acted that way. Sure, I was still pissed at him for it, and he wasn't in any way justified, but now I felt that I understood just  _why_ he had said it. I'd also found out through Gabe that Brendon had punched Frank in the face, and I couldn't help but feel bad. 

"It was my fault, really, I've been teasing him because of what Pierre said a few days ago. You were laughing at him, and he just snapped I guess."

"I guess..." Ryan parroted, his words drifting off as he continued to stare up at the ceiling. 

It was a few minutes before any conversation drifted between the two of us again, and when it did, I was the first to talk. 

"Hey Ryan?" I asked, almost unsure as to whether or not the young boy was still awake. 

"Yeah?" he responded weakly, the drowsiness evident in his voice as he dragged his eyes open slowly. 

"How does it feel when you see Brendon all fucked up? Like, when he's stuck in a hallucination, how does it make you feel?"

He sighed deeply, but not out of exasperation. I could tell this was something he often thought about, something that tore him up inside. It took him a few seconds, but he finally spoke; "It makes me feel sad. Sad and, distant from him... like, he's lost when he's obsessing over the shooting star he saw out of our window, fixated on the idea that it was a spaceship, or an escape pod from a dying world. When he's frantic, screaming and crying, it hurts, but I can block him out, just categorize it as him having a bad day. But when he's not manic, when he's calm but still obsessive, when he's telling me all his theories and stories in a way which he so firmly believes, I get even sadder. He lives in this universe that only he is privy to, and I can never see what he sees. It's like a huge barrier splitting us apart. But, at the same time, I know it isn't real. I know he's being delusional, and that he's never encountered any of it, and that it's all just made up by his brain because he's sick. Sometimes I forget, and fall into his dreams with him, but for the most part, I'm separate from his world. All I get is descriptions, retellings. I can never be in that ship with him, watching it all unravel, even though he was never there in the first place. I'm not sure which I would rather experience- him being neurotypical, or me being hallucinative..."

His speech trailed off again, and I paused for a few seconds myself. It was something I had never thought about- how Brendon's illness affected Ryan. It was likely that it would never work in reverse, as I had never heard of someone developing anorexia because their partner suffered from it. Psychological disorders, I realized, could be infectious. Ryan spent nearly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with Brendon- it was only inevitable that his mental state would be affected. I wasn't expecting Ryan to continue, but what he said next surprised me slightly.

"I guess he must feel some of what I do when I have bad days. That sadness, that distance." He breathed deeply, blinking back what I hoped weren't tears. I hated when Ryan cried- he was practically a baby, an extensive 8 years younger than myself. "When I don't eat, he gets sad, and I see it. He's basically my personal cheerleader when I do, but on the days when I can't bring myself to pick up a fork, he says nothing. He'll look at me sadly, but he'll stay silent because he knows that's what I want. I don't want to make him sad, and I guess he doesn't want to do that to me either."

"I wish everything was so much better for you two." I told him, confidence in my voice. "You don't deserve all this, you don't deserve to be confined to a hospital. If you were never here, you would be so much happier-"

"If I was never here, I wouldn't even know Brendon." he snapped, before jarring for a second and relaxing completely. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I yelled, you're being nice. Thank you. Why did you ask, anyway...?"

"Oh," I said, slightly surprised by his inquisition. "No reason, I just want to understand you two better, you know?" 

"Yeah, I guess..." he agreed, falling back onto the bed, head rested in his hands as he hummed a familiar tune that I couldn't quite place.


	15. They Don't Believe In Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an extra chapter to make up for me being a dick and forgetting to upload x

My feet rested on the small visiting table as I stared across at the empty seat in which my little brother was supposed to be sat. Once again, unsurprisingly, he was late to come and visit me. Saturdays had always been this way, and it was relieving to me that despite what may happen in the institute, Mikey's weekly visits stayed the same.

Just as I always had, I used this time to observe my fellow patients with their loved ones. My gaze initially fell on Ryan and Brendon. Just like last week, they were sat together, Ryan on Brendon's lap. Surprisingly, however, it wasn't Brendon's parents who sat across from the pair- I was used to Mr and Mrs Urie's dark brown hair, but the lone woman who sat across from the two had peroxide blonde hair that was growing out at the roots, and just barely scraped past her collar bones. I saw that Brendon was sat more upright and alert than he usually was, and his arms were tightened around his boyfriend in a strongly protective manner. It dawned on me then that it was entirely possible that the woman sat across from the two was Ryan's mother- the same one who hadn't visited in the whole time he had been here.

I felt anger bubble in the pit of my stomach for the woman. She looked disgusted by her own son, and it took everything in me not to go over there and tear that look from her face. I understood now why Ryan never talked about his family- there wasn't much to say. His mother's thin lips were curled in an unsightly manner, and she very obviously did not want to be there.

I was prevented from observing the odd meeting further by my brother entering the visitation room. I sat up slowly as I saw him walk through the door, preparing myself to hear whatever excuse he was going to provide me with this week and attempting to ignore the way Ryan squirmed uncomfortably.

"Sorry I'm late-" he panted, cutting off his own words in an attempt to breathe, "I was with Alicia-"

"Who's she?" I asked, not being familiar with the name. It wasn't normal for me to not know someone who Mikey was talking about. He grinned sheepishly, and I could see a blush creeping across his cheeks.

"She's the girl from the coffee shop- remember, I thought her name was Alice? Well I asked her on a date today- she said yes! I'm so happy, Gee, she's so great, I cant wait for you to meet her, she's so pretty..." Mikey rambled on in this same manner before he stopped himself, realising he had been rambling and apologizing before asking me how I had been.

This was my opportunity to ramble myself- I had so much Frank-related news to tell Mikey, and I wasn't all too sure where to start.

"I've been great," I decided to begin with, answering his question first before I even began on the topic of Frank. I was practically bouncing in my seat in excitement, and I couldn't help myself when Mikey raised an eyebrow. I began to blurt out everything that had happened between me and Frank in the week since I had seen him, seemingly with no regard to the fact that any of the orderlies around us could eavesdrop and uncover us at any moment. I told him everything, from the kiss, to the forgetting about the kiss, to the events in the rec room only two days prior. When I thought about it- I had known Frank for so little time, but had grown attached to him so quickly that it almost made my head spin. He had only started working here 22 days ago, but to me, it seemed like an eternity. I aired this thought to Mikey on the end of my spiel, but my younger brother didn't reply. Instead, the scrawny twenty year old just looked at me blankly, his arms crossed in front of him as he scanned my eyes. "Mikey?" I asked, unsure as to just how my brother was taking in what I had just told him.

"Are you sure...?" he finally asked me, and I groaned at just how vague his question was.

"Am I sure what? That he kissed me?" I drawled sarcastically, trying to provoke my brother out of the stupor that he seemed to have fallen into.

"No, idiot," he scolded, "are you sure it's a good idea to have a relationship with an orderly? Isn't it, like, illegal?"

"Honestly," I breathed, scratching at the old table slightly, "I have no idea. But who cares, right? I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"

"He could go to prison." Mikey stated bluntly, and I rolled my eyes at his pessimism. He had never been one to look on the bright side of a situation- I knew I was one to talk, but Mikey had always expected the worst from everything. Even when we were kids, and we got a pet rabbit- all he could think about was how long it would last before it died, when I was trying to decide whether to call it Skywalker or Vader. My mother, ultimately, had intervened- she called it Flopsy.

"He won't go to prison." I reassured him, although I wasn't completely certain. "I don't even think it's  _illegal_ \- we're both consenting adults, right? We're fine."

"You're considered a vulnerable adult, Gerard." Mikey had to remind me, seeing as I had evidently forgotten the label of incompetence I had been branded with when I had first entered the institute over a year ago. "He also has power over you- he could be seen as exploiting you."

"He's not exploiting me." I snorted. "If anything, I'm exploiting  _him_ \- I keep stealing his cigarettes."

"You're smoking again?!" he exclaimed, his arms uncrossing and hitting the table between us with a thud. It was lucky for me that just at that moment, the light bell to signal the end of visiting hours rang out throughout the room. We both stood, and I hugged my younger brother goodbye and watched as he left through the back door for another week.

I made a beeline to my room. Pete was just leaving for his one on one therapy session with Dr James as I got there, and I nodded to acknowledge his presence and wish him luck for his session.

Shutting the door behind me, I fell ungracefully onto my bed in the quiet. I glanced over at the small clock on my bedside table, and saw that it had only been eight minutes since Mikey had left. I sat up, staring blankly at the bedroom door, contemplating just what I should do now I was alone. Coming up with nothing, I decided to draw.

Without even thinking, I began to draw a landscape I was more than familiar with. It was the garden I had spent so much of my childhood in with Mikey- the one from my grandmother's house. We had been there almost every day as children, the both of us loving the undying attention she gave to us. It also helped that her food was great, which was possibly one of the reasons I had been so overweight as a child.

I was just putting the finishing touches on the large blue slide when there was a knock on the door. I looked up, confused, before calling out a weak and questioning "Come in?"

A face peered around the door, and I quickly realized that it was Frank. I grinned as I saw him, and he crept into the room as he realized that we were alone. I shuffled over to make space for him on my bed, and he sat down beside me, peering over my shoulder to see what I was doing. I showed him the drawing, and I watched his eyes flit back and forth as he studied it.

"Wow, Gerard- this is great, I didn't know you could draw!" he marveled, holding the drawing up as if it would somehow help him look at it.

"I can, sorta..." I trailed off, never having been too confident in my ability.

"More than sorta." he said, a tone of certainty to his voice as he pecked my lips, as if on instinct. He grinned sheepishly afterwards, realising just how casual he had been. After we had kissed in the rec room the other day, we had decided that hiding from whatever it was that was between us was stupid. We hadn't, however, actually defined what exactly it  _was_ that we had. It wasn't that I minded, but it would definitely have helped the both of us if we decided. I aired that thought to him, and he hummed in recognition.

"Well, I think boyfriends sounds about right. How's that? Gerard Way, will you be my boyfriend?" he was smirking as he said it- he wasn't taking himself wholly seriously, but he certainly wasn't joking.

"Hmm, you know what, Frank Iero? I think I will." I accepted his suggesting, laughing slightly along with him. He kissed me again, and then blurted out yet another suggestion.

"You should draw me."

"Huh?" I asked, not entirely hearing what he had said.

"Oh- nothing, it was nothing, forget it..." he was babbling now, and a blush was crawling up his cheeks, and I was determined to find out what he had said. I dropped my sketchbook beside me on the bed, and leaned over towards him, my hands immediately going to his sides and tickling him. He burst out into laughter before pleading for mercy seconds later.

"Are you going to tell me now?" I asked cockily, raising one eyebrow at him.

"O-kay, I will, I will-" he hurried, interrupting his own words with his laughter. "I sai- I said you should d-draw me."

"Draw you?" I mocked teasingly. "And why would I do that?"

"Because I'm the best damn muse you've ever seen." he quipped back, his giggles having subsided now.

"That's a great point. Fine, I'll draw you. Lay down or something, I dunno." I wasn't the best at instructing people how to pose, but then again it wasn't often that I needed to. Frank wasn't the best at posing, either, so that also made up for me. He laid his head in my lap, which definitely made drawing him much harder, as I usually held my sketchbook there. Regardless, he refused to move, and so I worked around him.

We chatted idly as I drew him, and just as I was starting the outline of his hair, the topic strayed on to what we believed in.

"I think I'm incredibly lucky." Frank told me, shuffling slightly on the bed. He had been trying, and failing, to stay still. "It could have only been luck that brought us together- yeah, I think I'm the luckiest motherfucker on this earth."

I smirked at that, before giving him my own input. "I don't believe in luck."

"Yeah?" he cocked his head, knocking my arm slightly and causing me to draw a light line through his nose, for which he apologized profusely before continuing on his belief talk. "What do you think it was, then? Because I don't think I met you by chance."

"Maybe it was God." I mused, trying to erase the mistake as delicately as I could without ruining any of the rest of the sketch.

"God? You believe in that stuff?" he asked. From his tone I could tell that he wasn't intending to be rude, merely curious.

"I guess so, I mean... I was brought up Christian, and my mother took me to church on Sundays and stuff. It's what my family believe, so I believe it too, I guess." I wasn't a devout Christian- I hadn't been to church since my early teen years, and the only Bible passages I had ever read were the ones we learnt in school. I did, however, still have the belief that God existed, and that he had some impact on our day to day lives, no matter how small.

"I went to a Catholic school." He wrinkled his nose at the memories. "All it did was make me hate religion, y'know? Like I couldn't give a fuck about Judas Iscariot now, and I certainly didn't when I was twelve. Also, a nun beat me for kissing a guy in the middle of Mass. So all in all it sucked, and not in the good way."

"I guess that makes sense." I hummed, accepting his views. I could understand why- had I been forced to attend a Catholic school, and even beaten for being gay, I would likely have developed the same views. It was just as I came to this conclusion that I finished the last strand of Frank's hair. I nudged his shoulder and showed him the drawing, and he grinned widely before kissing me again.

"I love it, it's perfect. Can I keep it?" he praised and asked eagerly, holding the paper gently but studying the graphite depiction of his face deeply.

"Of course you can," I grinned, signing the corner out of habit before gently pulling the page from the glue of the spine and handing it to Frank, before kissing him again.


	16. You Were Never A Friend To Me

I had been officially dating Frank for five days when Dr James called me to her office. Naturally, I immediately assumed when she summoned me that she knew about Frank and I. While we hadn't been running down the corridors of the institute professing our adoration for each other, we hadn't exactly been subtle- holding hands at dinner, smirking unashamedly during group therapy, and sneaking kisses when we thought nobody was looking. So when Frank came into my room on that particular Thursday with an uncertain look on his face, telling me that Dr James would like to see me, I could tell that we both feared the worst.  

I walked to her office alongside him, our hands brushing but never linking. I could feel my guts twist and tighten as we neared the door, and eventually I was face-to-face with the looming white entrance to my own personal hell. Frank stepped back, pushing me slightly forward as he did so.

I knocked on the door to Dr James's office only once before swinging the door open and walking inside, leaving Frank alone in the hallway behind me. She looked up slowly from her ever-cluttered desk and peered at me over the thick rims of her glasses. 

"Gerard," she greeted warmly, "how are you today?"

"Uhm, fine I guess?" I replied, unsure as to what the actual purpose of my visit was. Dr James flicked through a few pages of the folder on her desk. I scanned the paper quickly, reading what I could from this angle before realising that the folder she was glossing through was about me. I had only seen my file once before, and that was the day I was admitted. She kept all of our folders in a tall, locked filing cabinet, and kept the key around her neck at all times.

"Good. Do you know why I called for you?" She had closed the folder by this point, after scrawling a note on one page in pencil.

"I presume I'm being lauded for my impeccable sheep-herding skills?" I laughed, attempting to quell the nerves that were eating away at the back of my brain. She chuckled, knowing I was joking and not deluded, before continuing.

"No, Gerard. That's not why you're here today. You're here because we have decided that it would be best for you right now if, alongside weekly group therapy sessions, you also attend one-on-one therapy again." 

My breath caught in my throat. I remembered one-on-one sessions- I hated them. One whole hour in a room alone with Dr James as she pressured me into answering her incredibly personal questions about my life, and my childhood. My relationships with everyone from the other patients to my brother, or the girl I dated in the third grade. They had stopped about three months into my treatment, because Dr James had decided that they were redundant alongside the group therapy. I began to wonder why they had suddenly become necessary again, and I decided to air this question to her.

"We're considering moving you away from group therapy." she concluded, which only served to make me even more confused. All of F ward had to undergo the torture of group therapy. They said it was to "strengthen a sense of community" between us all, but it was more than likely to just be because they were too lazy to make time for each of us individually. The only people who had one-on-one sessions were those who needed direct help, like Ryan, Josh, Pierre, and Brendon, or those who are only getting worse, like Pete, whose lies seemed to have not improved at all since he had arrived.

That was when a terrifying thought struck me. 

Was I getting worse?

This entire time I had been sure I was getting better. After all, I no longer spent my time thinking of creative ways to off myself, I'd been taking my meds, eating the chef's food, and even actually staying awake during group therapy. I felt better than I had in a long time, there was no way that I had been getting worse.

I hadn't noticed that Dr James had been talking in the time I had spent fretting. I tried to tune back into her speech, and I nodded redundantly, not quite sure what I was agreeing to. She seemed to take this as a cue to begin interrogating me in a way that I definitely hadn't missed.

"How are you getting along with the others? I know you're close with Pete, but what about everyone else?" she asked, leaning in towards me with her head leant on both hands. She repulsed me in that position- her nose seemed to loom towards me, highlighting her prying nature. I never felt that she had a genuine interest in me or my life- it was always glaringly obvious that she was only asking these things so that she could write them down in her brown paper files later. Regardless, I had to answer her.

"I'm fine with everyone, I thought you knew that? I kinda feel protective over a lot of them, they're all younger than me and stuff, y'know?" I replied in the vaguest sense I could- it was her job to know what was going on with her patients, but it definitely wasn't mine to tell her.

"Well," she began, shifting slightly in her seat, "you shouldn't get too settled in being their protector. You won't be here forever, you know." 

Dr James had always been confident in the fact that I wouldn't be here for very long. I had been confident too, at first, but as the months dragged on, and turned to years, I accepted that I was in for the long run. I'd been in this godforsaken place for the best part of two years, and I couldn't see myself getting out of here anytime soon. She, however, saw it differently. I didn't respond to her optimism, and so she moved on to another interrogative question.

"How is Frank?"

My head shot up at that question. I had settled slightly into the comforting idea that she didn't know anything, but that unexpected question had my anxiety racing once again. Why was she asking about Frank? I answered her uncertainly, and she rolled her eyes before rephrasing her question.

"I mean, how is he in regards to your care? It is his job to make sure you're functioning properly and coping with your treatment, after all. Not just to be your friend."

A wave of relief washed over me then, realising that she was asking about Frank in regards to his job, and not because she knew what was happening between us. I assured her that he was doing a great job, and she seemed satisfied with that answer. 

Dr James proceeded to barrage me with questions, and I did my best to answer each one before she finally dismissed me. I jumped up from the chair possibly faster than I should have done, and mumbled a goodbye before stumbling out of the door. To my surprise, Frank was still stood in the corridor. He must not have moved for the whole time I was in her office.

"What was it about?" he asked, eyeing me nervously. Of the two of us, he was definitely the most anxious about being caught- he would have to be transferred to a new site, or worse, just lose his job in general. Because Frank lived at the institute, losing his job would render him homeless, which was something I knew we both wanted to avoid. 

"She wants me in for one-on-one therapy." I told him, resting my hand on his upper arm to reassure him. "She doesn't know anything."

Hindsight is always 20/20.


	17. Easy On My Eyes

I woke up bored. Truth be told, I was normally bored, but this particular bout of boredom proved to be so unbearable that I ended up bothering Frank until he did something about it.

  
"Fine," he sighed finally, "we'll talk to Dr James. She can give you a job to do or something."

Just as he said, she did indeed give me a job to do. She handed Frank a set of keys, and told me to "be productive" by mowing the grass in the courtyard. I rolled my eyes at her obvious exploitation, but agreed to the task regardless- I'd rather cut some grass than sit in the rec room doing nothing for hours on end.

I practically bounced along the corridors towards the courtyard, elated to finally have something to do with my day. The institute could get tediously boring after you'd lived here for a while. Sure, there was always someone to talk to, but the lack of new or external stimuli rendered most conversations boring. There were only so many times you could discuss the weird stain on the ceiling of the rec room before you just didn't care anymore. Mowing the grass was new and exciting- it was normally done by the caretaker, but he was ageing and got lazier every day. The courtyard grass looked as if it hadn't been cut for over a month. At most, he would sweep the corridors and clean the food from the cafeteria walls, and that was only when he woke up.

I honestly didn't see a reason not to mow the courtyard. It was small enough that me and Frank would be able to talk the whole time, even if we were at opposite ends of the grass, and plus mowing the grass didn't take much effort- you just pushed something heavy for a little while, and then you were done for the next couple of weeks.

We reached the courtyard, and Frank set out towards the small green shed that lived in the bottom right corner. The whole building was made of thick plastic, and the exterior had been scratched into more times than I could count. He took the keys Dr James gave him from his pocket, and searched for the correct one. When he finally got the padlock undone, he opened the lightweight door to reveal the shed's contents.

In all honesty, I was kind of underwhelmed. In all of the time I had been in the institute, I had never seen the inside of this shed. I had begun to imagine the possible contents as a way to kill time, and none of what I saw in front of me lived up to my expectations. The inside was dark and warm, and there were no windows- something which I really should have noticed from the outside, but I never did. The walls housed several small tools- manual hedge shears, a few trowels, pliers, that sort of thing. Several pairs of old, brown gloves littered the shelves. In the middle of the shed was where all the larger tools were scattered haphazardly. A broom was propped up against the back corner, and a leaf blower lay beneath it. A pile of lawn chairs were also stacked against the wall, and there were several other things that I didn't quite know the function of. Finally, my eyes fell on the lawnmower. It was small and unimpressive, however I did note that it ran from a petrol motor. I made a mental note to thank whoever purchased it- there was no way I would have been able to use an electric mower without running over the cable and dying via electrocution.

"Why the fuck is it orange...?" Frank asked, grabbing the lawnmower and pulling it out from the small plastic shed. I hadn't noticed it's colour, and I looked back to check. It was, indeed, orange.

"I have no idea- I thought these things were supposed to be green? To like... fit in with the grass or something?" I responded, taking the mower from him and dragging it towards the far corner of the courtyard. Frank dipped back into the shed for a second, but I could still hear his sarcastic response between the gasps of his laugh.

"Why would a lawnmower need to fit in with the grass? This is gardening, not the Vietnam war- it doesn't need to be camouflaged!" he reappeared carrying one of the white deck chairs I had spotted earlier. I shook my head at him as he propped it up on as small a patch of grass as he could before sitting in it.

"I still need to mow there, you know" I told him, gesturing to the grass beneath his feet.

"Yeah?" he grinned, tilting his head like a puppy. "You can do this bit last."

I rolled my eyes at him before lining up the lawnmower and pulling the cord to start the engine. I had only managed to walk a few feet before Frank began to spout nonsense.

"This is just like a shitty teen movie." he said, and I could see exactly what he meant. There he was, lounging in a white deck chair while some attractive guy mows some grass in front of him. I was about to respond before Frank jumped up and out of his chair, scrabbling inside quickly. I had no idea what he was doing, but I shook my head at him and carried on regardless.

I had already turned around and started to mow back down the courtyard by the time Frank returned. He raced back to the deck chair, and sat with his legs over one side. Now I could see exactly what he was doing- he was now wearing sunglasses halfway down his nose, and holding a tall glass of ice tea. "Now it's a shitty teen movie" he laughed, and this time I joined in.

As if to accentuate the shitty-teen-movie idea, Frank decided that it would be his job throughout all of this to simply catcall me while I attempted to work. At first I was flustered, but I quickly composed myself and began to joke back at him, or mock offense whenever he would whistle or jeer.

It was during a moment of quiet that I began to think aloud. I was almost halfway through the courtyard before a specific memory from my childhood came flooding back. "I used to hate mowing the lawn" I told Frank. When I looked back at him I could see that he had raised an eyebrow in questioning, I began to explain. "When I was younger, maybe like fourteen or fifteen, my dad made me do this for the first time. It was awful, I hated it. You have all these stereotypes of hot teenage boys mowing lawns- it was nothing like that. To start with, I couldn't even get the engine running. No matter how much I pulled the damn cable, it just wouldn't start up. I got frustrated, and my dad just ended up getting super mad at me and doing it himself. It just made me feel like utter shit..."

"No offense," Frank interjected, "but I don't like your dad. He sounds like an asshole."

"Why do you think my mom divorced him." I joked, before continuing with my story. "When I did get it started, the motor was so loud. Much louder than this one-"

"I think this one's quieter so Brendon doesn't think an alien ship is landing" Frank joked before I scolded him.

"It was really loud. And the street we lived on was kinda... populated. A lot of people walked by. I felt like it drew so much attention to me, y'know? Like I was the one making all of this racket, so obviously people were gonna look at me-"

"I know I am right now-"

"Shut up, Frank" I laughed. I was almost finished with the lawn by this point, and turned to cut what would be the last row of grass, bar the small area still trapped under Frank's chair. "I'm serious. I hate having a lot of attention, it makes me feel uncomfortable, like I'm gonna screw up or something. And then even worse, my dad was yelling at me the whole time, and that just drew even more attention to me."

"I'll yell at him, see how he likes it-" Frank growled, before I interrupted.

"Your job isn't to yell at people. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's the opposite of your job. Now move so I can get to that grass." I began to laugh as, instead of removing himself from the chair and moving it that way, Frank decided that the best course of action would be to stand up while still holding the chair, and move with it attached to him.

"Better?" he smiled up at me.

"Sure" I laughed back, moving the lawnmower over the minuscule area previously covered by his chair before finally releasing the break pad and turning it off. I discarded the mower and approached Frank, who had long since finished his ice tea.

"I'm sad, you're finished already." he joked, taking both of my hands in his. "I was enjoying watching you work so hard."

"Oh yeah, it's all fun and games for you, while I'm slaving away and shit."

"Calm down, princess. It's only some gardening." he laughed as he stood up, releasing my hands and folding up the deck chair. "Let's pack all this crap away and you can go get a shower- you kind of stink."

I kind of did.


	18. Brave Face Talk So Lightly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not even i know where i've been

Cigarette smoke, his hands in my hair, the glow of the hall light, the sound of passing birds. These were the things I only ever got to enjoy at night- under the cover of darkness, all of this was mine. Cigarettes were mine, my life was mine,  _Frank_  was mine. There were no other patients or orderlies or Dr James to tell us that what we had was wrong. It was foolish to use the nighttime as a shield, but we did so anyway. I felt safe here- laying on the bench in the courtyard, my head in Frank's lap as we shared a cigarette and kept warm under a blanket. I felt so distant from the hospital that stood feet away. We had created some sort of bubble universe that was impenetrable from the outside, and I would have been happy to live in it forever. I decided to voice this thought to Frank.

"I don't think I ever want to go back to the outside world." He looked down at me, surprised, before blowing out smoke and asking for an explanation.

"What do you mean? Surely you don't want to stay in this place forever?" 

"I mean, I don't really care if I'm in the hospital or not." I said truthfully. "But I never want to be back how I was before I came here, especially not without you there."

He nodded before replying. "Yeah, yeah. I like it here, I guess. Some of you are kinda crazy, but I don't have to deal with all that shit, so I like it. You're my deal, y'know? Like, I'm here to care for you, and that's a pretty sweet deal. I even get paid for it. Never had such a good set up outside of this shithole."

"What was so bad about the real world for you?" I asked tentatively. I knew exactly what had gone wrong in my life- but the idea of Frank having had a bad life was not one that sat well with me.

"My mom. She fucking hated me. I wasn't her cute little poster child, y'know? I never went to church, refused to be a trophy, got shitty grades, all that crap moms hate. She despised me, and she let me know every day. When I told her about my first teenage band, she slapped me. Most moms would be all 'oh that's nice, honey', but nah. She slapped me, because apparently I was going nowhere in life. I was 14."

"That's... awful. What about your dad? Was he just as bad?" I asked, now looking up at him with deep concern in my eyes.

"Nah, he cleared off when I was about 10. His dad, though, my grandfather? I loved him. He hated my mom just as much as I did- the only reason he stuck around after my dad left was because of me. He was the only decent parent I had. He let me stay with him whenever my mom wouldn't let me come home, and gave me money whenever I needed it. He even encouraged me to get tattoos as soon as I could- my mom hated tattoos."

"He sounds so nice, and kind of like my grandmother. I looked up to her a lot. Is he still around?" I regretted asking as soon as the words left my lips- Frank suddenly looked a whole lot sadder than before, and I knew I had my answer.

"He... he died a week before my 18th birthday. He left me all this money, but none of it could replace him. That's just not possible. It fucking sucked. And then to add insult to injury, my wonderful mother kicked me out the moment I turned eighteen. 12:01am, Halloween, she stormed into my room and told me to get the fuck out of her house. Normally I would have gone to my grandfather's house, but he was dead. I slept on a park bench that night. Happy-fuckin-birthday Frankie."

"Shit..." I whispered, remembering that Frank was still eighteen. These weren't old scars from years ago- these were barely-healing wounds that he was tearing apart for me to watch bleed. "I'm sorry..."

"Don't be," he smiled, leaning down to kiss me before continuing. "I'm far away from her now. I stayed with a friend for the rest of senior year, before he moved away for college. Then I was looking for jobs with somewhere to live and, well, here I am."

"Here you are." I smiled. In a way, I was selfishly glad that Frank's mom had kicked him out- there was no way he would be here with me otherwise. 

"What about you?" he asked absentmindedly. I knew that I couldn't withhold information from Frank after he has just spilled his guts to me like that, and besides, I wasn't sure I wanted to. I hadn't told anyone but Mikey what had happened to me- maybe it would be good to tell another person I trust.

"A couple of years ago, I was in a relationship with this guy. His name was Adam, and he was a couple of years older than me. I liked him a lot, but he also scared the crap out of me. He was always intimidating, but I never really thought about it until it affected me. It was okay for a while, but after a few months he just kept feeding me all this shit about myself..."

"What did he say?" Frank asked, evidently already irritated by Adam. I knew that he was asking because he wanted to know what had hurt me, and not just because he was nosy.

"He used to tell me that I was completely worthless. That I was nothing, and the only good thing about me was that I was with him. He used to push me around, and hit me, too. I think it was some power thing. He wanted to be the king, he wanted to be on top. So he had to put me in my place. I believed him, though. I thought he was the best thing about me, I never wanted to be apart from him. Then he tried to hurt Mikey..."

"Mikey?" Frank asked. "Oh! Your brother."

"Yeah. He... he tried to hurt him, let's just say that. And I caught him. Mikey was asleep... I yelled at him, which I'd never done before. I told him to get out of my house and not to come back.  He didn't like that. He just targeted me, instead. Said he'd been looking for me when he found Mikey..."

"What did you do?"

"I just tuned out and let it happen. When he left, I went to the police. They laughed me right out the door, but when I told my dad... him and his hunting buddies went after him."

"Did they kill him?" Frank gasped, evidently shocked. 

"I have no idea." I replied honestly. "But I was never bothered by Adam Lazzara again. At least, not physically. He kind of messed up my head, and my self-worth and everything. That was around when I started smoking, started cutting, and I was all aggressive and everything. Especially towards Mikey... I kind of blamed him. I know that's dumb but I did. He was what we had fought about, so I blamed him for ruining what I thought was the only good thing I had. And then when I- he got in the way."

"Got in the way of what?" Frank inquired. He seemed to genuinely not know what I was talking about, and so could have been forgiven for pressing me for information. 

"I tried to kill myself. I had a knife, I tried to kill myself- but he found me early. He came home earlier than I thought and found me on the bathroom floor. He wanted to help me but I was delirious from losing blood, I couldn't think straight. He tried to wrestle the knife out of my hands and- I stabbed him."

Frank was visibly taken aback, and I began to panic that I had fucked up. I realised now that it probably wasn't the best thing to tell Frank, especially seeing as I had been put in a psych ward. He probably thought I was genuinely insane now- stabbing people and everything. I sat up and waited patiently for him to speak.

"Is he okay?"

"He's fine." I reassured him, rubbing my eye from anxiety. "I didn't, like- it wasn't major or anything. I got his shoulder, just under his collarbone. He was okay... he called us both an ambulance. I owe him my life, but I really shouldn't. He was the one who put me in here to get better, when he should have let me die... you probably think I'm crazy now..."

"No." he said definitively, causing me to look up from where I had been staring at the ground. "I could never think you're crazy. People do insane shit when they need help. As long as Mikey's fine, and he forgives you, and you  _pinky swear_  not to stab me, I think everything is okay here."

I laughed slightly at Frank's five-year-old-esque statement, and he placed his hand on the side of my face soothingly, bringing our lips together and kissing me to accentuate that really, it was all okay.


	19. A Dumb Screenshot of Youth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the calm before the storm

_**August 6th** _

  
It was free time, a week after I had mowed the courtyard. Me and Frank were laying on our stomachs on the slowly-growing grass, and I watched as Frank examined the ground below us. We were alone, as we often were now. The other patients had seemed to catch on pretty quickly that me and Frank had  _something_ , even if they didn't know exactly what it was. They'd begun to leave us relatively alone when we were all outside. They still clung to me at other times of the day, and I obviously still shared a room with Pete, but it was nice to get a small amount of respite each day. 

"These weren't here before..." Frank mumbled to himself.

"Huh?" I asked, looking down at the grass between his fingers.

"There's daisies. They must have grown after you cut the grass." He picked one and presented it to me, the long stem hanging down from his fingers. I took it from him and smiled, knowing exactly what to do next. I looked at the large collection of daisies below me, and began to pick several of the longest-stemmed ones, as well as several dandelions. Frank watched me with a smirk as I braided them together, picking more and more until I had a large chain. I tied the ends together finally, and placed the ring on his haed.

"A crown for my prince." I smiled, and he burst into giggles as I did so. 

"That's the cutest thing you've ever done..." he murmured, hiding his face in his hands.

"You look perfect" I told him when he emerged again, hair slightly ruffled and the flower crown sat neatly on the top. His white shirt had shifted slightly, and his collarbone was exposed. I picked up my sketchbook from beside me and slid the pencil out from the ringbinding. I started to attempt to draw Frank again, a few pages since my previous attempt. He smiled as he noticed what I was doing. 

I tried to capture how unkempt and casual he looked in that moment, but it was as if Frank wanted to make my life difficult. He kept moving, and wouldn't sit still how he had been before. 

"Fraaaank..." I whined, pressing my hands to his shoulders to stop him moving. "Sit still..." 

"I'm sorry," he laughed, rubbing his eye and beaming. He took the sketchbook from me gently, looking down at what I'd drawn so far. "You're such an amazing artist..."

"Thanks..." I gushed, and I could feel my cheeks burn scarlet. Frank handed my sketchbook back to me, before looking around quickly and placing his hands on my cheeks, bringing our lips together and kissing me in an attempt to calm me down. 

It didn't work, obviously.I only became more flushed and jittery due to the affection. 

"I'll stay still." Frank promised, and resigned back into some resemblance of his former position. I tried to regain my composure and start my drawing again, but I could only manage to keep up the premise for a few minutes before Frank started giggling.

"What?" I asked, looking up and laughing along. 

"You look so cute when you're flustered." he replied.

"Shut up..."

 

  
**_August 10th_ **

There was a knock at my door in the early morning. It was storming outside, and Pete was staying in Patrick's room for the night, so I was left alone. There was only one person who could be outside that door so early in the morning- and sure enough, as the door opened, a familiar silhouette appeared.

"Frank?" I asked, blinking rapidly as my eyes attempted to adapt to the glow of the hall light. "Why are you here?"

"It's really dumb... promise not to laugh?" he asked, and I hummed in response. He sighed, before replying in a mumble. "I had a nightmare, and I can't sleep because of the rain..."

It was times like this that I saw Frank a lot less as a fully formed adult, and a lot more as just a scared eighteen year old. It was a stark contrast from the built-up exterior that he presented during the day. There was almost no way to tell that the kid in front of me was the same person who I spent my days with. I got out of bed, bringing the blankets with me, and ushered him back to lay down with me, whispering words of comfort as I did so. 

"Hey, hey, hey, it's fine. Don't worry. You're okay, it's just the rain." I comforted as he laid down beside me. There was a moment of silence bar the rain before Frank spoke up.

"Hey Gerard, can you do something for me? It's kind of childish, but..."

"Whatever it is, I'll do it." I promised, willing to do whatever it took to comfort him.

"Could you, uh, could you sing to me? When I was a kid, and I had a nightmare, my grandpa would always sing to me... actually no, forget it, it was stupid to ask. Forget it."

"No, it's okay." I hurried, "If it'll make you feel better, then I can sing to you."

I sang the first song that came to my head- Superstar by The Carpenters. 

_"Long ago, and oh so far away..._

_...oh baby, I love you, I really do."_

Frank stared up at me, wide-eyed, his mouth hanging open slightly. He blinked rapidly and began to speak.

"I love you."

_**August 13th** _

"Gerard, wake up.  _Gerard_."

I dragged open one eye in order to glare out whoever it was that had decided to wake me up at what I could already tell was an absolutely  _ungodly_  hour, when the blurry figure before me slowly materialized into Frank. Because _of course_  it was Frank.

"Whaddya want Frank" I groaned, turning away from him in some attempt to get back to sleep. It was futile, of course, and he just pulled me onto my back again and climbed onto my hips, providing me with no means of escape. I tried to bat him away, but he just grabbed me by the wrists and chuckled. 

He leaned down and whispered into my ear, "come with me, I want to show you something. But be quiet, Pete's still sleeping." I resigned myself to defeat and sat up, sliding my legs out from under Frank and standing up. Defiantly, I pulled up my comforter with me, not wanting to part with it just yet. This caused Frank to fall from my bed, crashing to the floor with quite a bang. We both burst out laughing, before realising that Pete was asleep not two feet away and quickly becoming quiet, if not without a few smirks to each other.

Frank started to walk out the door, and I followed him, now fully wrapped up in my comforter. It became clear very soon that we were heading to the courtyard, and I quickened my pace to catch up with Frank. He pushed open the double doors, jamming one side open before we both went outside. 

The sky was only just lightening, and I felt that it matched the blurred mess that was my mind. I still hadn't shaken the haze of a just-woken mind, and the warmth of sleep still buzzed through my nerves. It couldn't have been any later than five in the morning, and I felt as if I was dreaming as Frank guided me towards the small hill in the centre of the courtyard, where our bench lived. We didn't sit on the bench, however, opting instead to lounge on the grass in front of it, still damp from the rain only days ago. Frank wrapped his arm around my shoulders and I laced my own around his waist, pulling him in close. He rested his head on my shoulder and I could see what we had come out here for.

The sky, a lightening grey-blue only moments earlier, was showing the early signs of daybreak. Yellows and oranges tore through the sky, and the tip of the sun was peeking over the horizon line. It rose slowly yet steadily, and we watched together as the ink-blot sky quickly dissipated and was replaced by a full Dulux colour chart- from Harvest Fruits 1 all the way to Californian Sands 5. 

I had to avert my eyes when the sun furthered its ascent up through the sky, however it gave me time to look at Frank. His focus was still entirely on the sky above us, and I could see how wide his eyes were. The reflection of the sunrise on his corneas was almost as beautiful as he himself. The words I breathed out in that moment seemed to be the most obvious thing in the world at that moment.

"I love you too."


	20. Twenty - That's What You Get (When You Let Your Heart Win)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sorry.

We didn't know our time would be so limited. Had we, we likely would have cherished what little time we had a whole lot more than we did.

We also didn't know that the end of our secret affair was so imminent. Had we, we may not have been as stupid as we were.

It's easy to look back at the past and analyse where you went wrong. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that myself and Frank were being less than subtle, and it was only a matter of time before everything was revealed and we would have to face the consequences.

For the time being, we were blissfully unaware of what was to come. There was no way we could have known of the crushing heartbreak that we were closer to than we could ever possibly imagine. There was no way to stop it.

Me and Frank had rushed straight to mine and Pete's room directly after dinner, wanting some reprieve from the lack of privacy offered by the bleak institute. We were around other people almost every hour of every day, and we grew more frustrated by the second. Every encounter with another person was another reminder that we were not free to do what we wanted- we were stuck here, and we were breaking several rules. It was unlikely that our relationship would ever see the light of the outside world, and every therapy session was another jarring remembrance.

We were, admittedly unknowingly, wasting time. While I can't think of any better way we could have possibly spent our time, I also hate the way it was whittled away- discussing the non-issues and menial events of life. Frank's favourite meal and the name of my first pet. The best flavour of ice cream. What we'd do if we were outside those gates right now.

“I'd probably break into my mom's house and trash the place.” Frank decided.

“Are you still that mad at her?” I asked, sitting up slightly from where we were laid on my bed, Frank's head leaning on my shoulder and his body resting lightly on mine.

“Well, yeah... It's almost been a year since she kicked me out, and I haven't seen her since. I didn't even come back to get my stuff... I just left it all there. Do you think it's still there?”

“I... I don't know...” I answered truthfully, not wholly sure what I was supposed to say in this situation. Frank was obviously still deeply hurt by what his mother had done to him, and I couldn't imagine feeling the way he did. My parents had never been hate-filled or neglectful. They had often been too busy for me and Mikey, and we weren't very close, but we loved each other nonetheless. The idea of my own mother doing that to me was too foreign a concept to even comprehend.

I also had a deep amount of respect for Frank. He was only eighteen, albeit nearing nineteen, and he was almost completely alone. Sure, he had me and everyone at the institute, but I didn't think we counted. After all, what regular eighteen-year-old works at an institute and has a bunch of mental patients as his best friends?

“She's probably pawned it all.” he concluded, answering his own question with certainty, before turning his head to look at me and smiling widely. “But that doesn't matter. I don't need that crap when I have you.”

I could feel my cheeks burning scarlet under his gaze. He continued on, and I gradually tuned out from his words, focusing instead on how his lips moved as he formed the words, how his eyes gleamed with happiness, and just how much I cared for him.

“You're amazing.” I blurted out, almost subconsciously. I wasn't completely sure I'd spoken at all until I saw the expression of Frank's face soften. I continued, loving the reaction I was gaining from him. “You're just... beautiful. I love you so much.”

He ducked his head, blushing, and I placed my hand on his cheek. He looked back up at me, and I placed a kiss on his lips, expecting it to go no further for now.

Surprisingly, however, Frank brought me back close to him when I attempted to pull away. He shifted his weight so that he was sitting on my hips as he deepened the kiss intently. I placed one of my hands on his hip, the other on his back, pulling him closer. I felt suddenly intoxicated, every nerve in my body buzzing and the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. Goosebumps prickled at my skin and my head spun. Frank, I decided, was better than cigarettes. Better than alcohol, or anything I had ever experienced. Probably better than all of the things I'd never tried- heroin was no match for the boy in my arms, and the way his lips moved against mine.

“I love you,” He breathed between kisses, “so fucking much. More than anything.”

I allowed myself to relax. All of my caution, my regard for being secretive, left alongside my ability to think clearly. All I could think about was the way his body pressed against mine, the words he muttered into the dim air between us, and the way his lips tasted of tobacco and what I vaguely recalled as coffee.

I was lost in everything that was Frank, and he in me. Our senses were both heightened and dulled at the same time- the only thing we were able to focus on was one another. The rest of the world didn't exist, even if for a brief period of time.

We wouldn't have noticed, were we to suddenly not be alone any more.

And in fact, we didn't.

Not until we heard the door slam, and the quick beating of feet on hardwood floor.

We both jumped, and I raced out of the door, leaving Frank in my wake. When I got to the corridor, I couldn't see anyone there. My head was still spinning, but now for an entirely different reason. We had been caught. What happened now? Would Dr James find out? Would Frank be arrested?

I set off running down the corridor, away from my room, where I presumed Frank still was. I was paranoid, looking around me every other second in the hopes of seeing somebody else.

I could hear a conversation coming from a room close by, and I followed the sound. I soon found myself outside Dr James's room, and I could feel my pulse quicken and my lungs constrict as I walked into the stuffy office, making my presence known by knocking on the door, which had been left ajar.

I was met by the judging gazes of Dr James and Brendon. However, they did not carry the same composure. Whereas Dr James was calm and collected, Brendon looked stressed, confused, and anxious. His hair was wildly messy, as if he had been running his hands through it incessantly, and his eyes flicked around the room faster than I could keep track of, flitting from the floor, to myself, to Dr James, and back to the floor again.

There were a few jarring moments of silence before Dr James spoke up.

“Brendon, could you please bring Frank to my office, I have to discuss this matter with him and Gerard. After that you can leave, you've been very helpful.”

Brendon scuttled out of the room, and Dr James sat at her desk, gesturing for me to sit on the opposing seat. I did so, and gulped heavily as she began to speak, my fingernails digging into the armrest anxiously.

“There has been a very serious allegation made by Brendon. I want you to be truthful with me- are you having a relationship with your orderly, Mr Frank Iero?”


	21. They'll Tear Us Apart If You Give Them The Chance

It was safe to say that we had fucked up. It had been foolish of us to forget about the lack of privacy we had been forced into, and now we were paying the price. Frank was going to be transferred to another institute, and I would be left here, alone again. I had been feeling so much better these past few weeks than I had in the whole near-two years I'd been here, and I was confident that Frank's presence had been a major factor towards my improvement. I didn't want him to have to leave- I needed him here, where I could see him every day. After he left here, I had no idea when I would see him again.  _If_  I would see him again. Everything was completely uncertain from this point on. 

I could feel my heart racing in my chest as I stared back at Dr James. I'd frozen in the doorway, having still not answered her question. I could hear two sets of footsteps racing down the hall behind me, almost overshadowed by the thrum of my pulse coursing through my ears. The space between myself and Dr James was filled with silence and vitriol. My breath had caught in my chest, an attempt at escaping the situation thwarted by the constriction of my lungs and my sudden inability to open my jaw and defend myself.

"I won't ask again, Gerard." Dr James prompted, but I was still stuck in place. I wasn't even sure I had blinked since she had spoken. 

I felt a light touch above my elbow, and I was suddenly snapped from my stupor. I turned quickly, and the touch disappeared just as fast, to see Frank standing next to me, Brendon some paces behind him and breathing heavily. 

"Ah, Mr Iero. How nice of you to join us." Dr James drawled, smiling sickly-sweet and tilting her head slightly, it still resting atop her red-clad fingers.

"What going on?" he asked, and I could hear the attempt at intimidation in his voice. She gestured towards the seats opposite her desk, and Frank moved over to them, ushering me with him, my feet finally able to shake off the roots they had planted stiffly in the carpet. I heard the door shut behind us, and I presumed that Brendon had left us alone, trapped in here with my humanized hell.

"I feel you already know what is going on," she finally replied, pulling a brown folder from a drawer in her desk and placing it before us. Neither I nor Frank dared touch it, fearing the contents. "I presume you're aware of what Brendon just told me about?" she continued, her eyes staring straight through my flesh and bone and into my soul, shredding apart any sensitivity she could find in her wake.

"I'm sorry, I don't." Frank maintained. He was playing dumb, but I didn't see the point. I stayed silent. 

She sighed, rolled her eyes dramatically, and glared at Frank. "Don't lie to me. I know everything- there's no point in pretenses. You can look for yourselves." It was at this point that she opened the folder, flicking the manila covering away effortlessly, before spinning it around for us to look at. My gaze fell to the contents, and my throat closed up as I saw just what the file contained.

I would have recognized the scene anywhere. A black-and-white ink portrayal of the beginning of everything. Our lives on CCTV. There was text in the corner,  _'COURTYARD3 02:42 JULY 8TH',_ and there we were- Frank on the left side of the bench, cigarette to his lips and his free hand resting on my knee. I was sat facing him, my head tilted in lust. Whether it was for the cigarette or the boy holding it, I wasn't sure.

_"You're as normal as I'd ever want you to be."_

There were two more pictures from that night- the moment I'd rested my head on Frank's shoulder, and the moment he'd gotten up to leave. We both looked back up at Dr James and she chuckled sinisterly, before urging us to look at the rest. We flicked through them all in sequence, each one digging us a deeper hole than the last. The sound of a printer was the only noise filling the room.

_'THERAPY ROOM 5 14:12 JULY 12TH'_

Myself and Frank in plastic chairs- the day he found out about my scars. His hand on my knee for the second time. 

_"I wish I could pretend with you"_

_'COURTYARD3 01:58 JULY 14TH'_

A cigarette in my right hand. Frank's in my left. Our heads pressed together. The day I started smoking again.

_"We all do things we shouldn't sometimes."_

_'ROOM 14 22:36 JULY 16TH'_

Frank in my bed, his arms around me. Something I didn't remember _,_ but could definitely place. It was the day of the carnival.

_"He gets scared in car rides."_

_'COURTYARD4 02:38 JULY 18TH'_

A different angle from the other courtyard pictures. The picture was blurry- it had been raining that day, but you could see us nonetheless. Huddled up against the door, barely sheltered from the storm, locked in the middle of a kiss. The night I kissed Frank and everything truly got fucked over.

_"Just tell me what I did and I- I can fix it!"_

_'RECROOM 17:26 JULY 24TH'_

Frank kissing me, forcing me back against the wall. The day he'd attacked Ryan. The day I realized he wasn't perfect.

_"Forgetting was a shitty idea."_

There were so many pictures of us kissing. In my room, in the courtyard at night, anywhere we'd been alone. Everything was here. Holding hands after mowing the grass. My head in Frank's lap as we shared a cigarette. The flower crown. Frank in my bed the night I sang to him. Watching the sunrise from under my comforter. Everything.

I couldn't name the feeling stirring in the pit of my stomach. I was... angry, and hurt. But so much more than that. I felt irreparably invaded- every step we had made over the past month and a half had been followed and documented. Every time we thought we had been alone, they were watching. And we had been stupid enough to let them, not even thinking that the rooms could have been monitored. They had been watching us the whole time. They had _known_ the whole time. 

It was only now that I realized the noise of the printer had stopped. Dr James placed one last photograph in front of us, the ink still sticky from printing.

_'ROOM 14 13:32 AUGUST 16TH'_

My room, only minutes ago now. Frank straddling my hips as we kissed. And Brendon, in the doorway. Watching.

"I think you'll find I have all of the evidence I need." Dr James said, taking the folder back and resorting the pictures. "We've been monitoring the situation for some time now. An alarm was raised by a member of staff on the 16th of July. Holding hands in a confined space with five others in close proximity? Not your best move. We raked through past CCTV footage and well, you've seen what we found. So we kept tabs on you two- and what do you know, here we are."

"Why now?" Frank asked, anger evident in his voice. "Why wait? Why not confront us about it when you first knew?" 

"There wasn't sufficient evidence then. The reason this folder exists is to collate the events. We would have addressed this later on, but Brendon has sped up the process significantly.

"What's going to happen to Frank?" I asked, my voice weak and shaking. I was surprised I hadn't broken into tears yet.

"He will be transferred to another hospital. We have enough evidence for a legal case-"

"But you won't file one." Frank said, definitively. This seemed to be the first thing he had been confident in since stepping into the room. Dr James blinked several times, and there was a crack in her composure for a second. 

"No, we will not be." She said, much quieter than she had been before. "But you must still leave, effective immediately. You have five minutes to say goodbye." And with that she stood up, exiting through the door quickly.

I turned to face Frank, still half in denial about what was happening. I could see the pain in his eyes, tears welling up in his eyes and threatening to brim over the edge. "What do we do?" I asked, my voice only just above a whisper.

"There's nothing we can do." he choked out, and then those tears made their debut, carving thick rivers into his cheeks as his eyes reddened. He pulled me towards him, his hand reaching up and resting in my hair, tugging on the strands as he rested his forehead on my shoulder. I could feel myself begin to cry too, and I wrapped both arms around him. 

"I'm so scared." I confessed, blinking back tears as my vision dropped to the floor. If I'd ever felt hopelessness, it was surely now. There was no way out of this. Frank was leaving the institute, leaving  _me._ I would be alone here again, with only the other patients for company. I had no idea how long I'd be in here for- it could be years before they released me. By that time Frank would have forgotten about me, and I wouldn't be able to find him anyway. This was it for us. End of the line. 

He pulled back from my shoulder, and looked me straight in the eyes. Those bright hazel irises that captivated me over a month and a half ago were now dull and listless. "I don't want to lose you." he muttered, his free hand coming up to wipe a tear from my cheek. "I won't let this be the end. I promise you, Gerard."

"But I'm stuck here." I laughed, not all too sure why. "And I don't think they'll let you back in any time soon."

"I know, but- I'll find a way. Dr James owes me one-"

The door swung open once again. "Times up. Come on, Frank, there's a car outside. I'll take you to collect your things."

His eyes closed slowly, and he nodded disjointedly. He looked back up and kissed me, hard but careful at the same time. A pure expression of the pain we both felt. 

"Not the end," he whispered, before kissing my forehead and leaving the room with Dr James.


	22. I Missed Your Skin When You Were East

It had only been two days since Frank had left and I could already feel his absence. The seat across from me in the cafeteria was empty, and so was the courtyard bench in the middle of the night. I'd stopped going out there- it was too upsetting, sitting there alone. I couldn't do it after becoming too used to sitting with him every night. Before Frank, I used to go out there to think- but now I didn't need it. I never stopped thinking any more, especially about him. Every waking moment I yearned for his presence, wished he'd walk back in through the cafeteria doors and announce that it had all been some joke.

But it wasn't a joke. I was still here alone, and there was no way Frank would be coming back. He was probably banned from the premises, he'd be escorted away by security if he even tried. It was impossible for me to see him again.  
I was glaring at the empty cafeteria chair where his form used to be when Ryan leaned over the table and whispered to me. "Hey, Gerard. Meet me in the Rec Room at 1. Don't let anyone know you're coming."

He elaborated no further, his words a demand rather than a request, and I was left in silence once again. Left to pick at my fries and stew in my loneliness without Frank. I refused to speak to Brendon, and so couldn't speak to Ryan for the most part. Pete had become closer than before with Patrick, which was partly my own fault. I'd been so preoccupied spending time with Frank that I'd neglected my friendship with Pete. He slept in our room less and less, and I was increasingly alone. Everything had changed when Frank was here, and now I was left to try and find where I fit in the shifted dynamic of F Ward. But I couldn't complain- it had been me who had removed myself from the situation- I should never have expected them to not adapt to survive without me.

I had nothing now, not even the secret I had tried so hard to keep. It had taken mere minutes for the whole of the ward to discover why Frank had been moved to another institute, and now I couldn't escape the sympathetic glances being shot at me from all angles. They all stared at me like some sort of caged animal, or a circus act. Gerard, the one who dated his orderly. The poor soul, the one Frank took advantage of.  
That's how they saw it. They were all so sure that he had been using me, that he didn't actually care for me. That he had seen someone he could use easily and leapt at the chance. 

They were wrong. I was sure of it.

The day dragged on just as the last- I ate in silence, and sat on the courtyard bench alone. Later, I claimed the red sofa in the Rec Room as my own, staring blankly at the part of the wall where Frank used to stand. I could just make out a dirt smudge on the wall, and I smirked as I realised that it must have come from Frank's shoe- it was almost impossible for him to stand with both feet on the ground when he was able to rest one on a wall. 

I wasn't sure how I survived without Frank all those months before he arrived. I'd spent the best part of two years alone like this, albeit with the company of Pete, Ryan, and the rest, however it was only now that I was struggling. Before Frank, I would have been perfectly content to spend the day not speaking to a single person. Now, I craved human interaction. I couldn't be alone.

1am eventually dragged around, and I pulled myself out of bed, having previously been pretending to sleep just in case they performed a room check. I opened the door slowly, cringing when it creaked. I checked the corridor, and ducked out into the dimly lit halls when I was sure the coast was clear. 

I was too familiar with this scene, and I forgot for a second what I was supposed to be doing. I walked past the rec room, and walked to the door leading out into the courtyard. I grabbed the cold metal bar, but stopped suddenly when I looked through the clear panel in the door. The bench was empty. Frank wasn't here. I remembered now. 

My hand slipped off the bar, and I turned around, recalling what I had been doing. I slipped into the rec room, and was taken aback by the crowd in the room. 

It wasn't just Ryan stood there- sat in various parts of the room were Pete, Josh, Patrick, and Brendon. My vitriolic gaze stilled a little longer on Brendon than it did on the other parties in the room. It was just enough time to notice that his arms, exposed in the standard white short-sleeved shirt, had ink all over them. He seemed to have scrawled dozens of stars, moons, planets, and spaceships all over both of his forearms. 

"What on earth is going on?" I sighed, running my hand through my hair. I was too tired for whatever they were about to suggest.

"We're going bowling. To make you feel better." Ryan said, standing up from the sofa and crossing the room to meet me. 

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I asked, now slightly worried about Ryan's mental state. There wasn't a way for us to go bowling- we were locked in a mental hospital.

Josh jumped up from the corner, where he'd been attempting to pull a doll's dress over a stuffed horse. "There's an alley in the basement! It's from years ago, I think they've forgotten about it."

"And how are we going to get in the basement? I don't even know where that is."

"Josh knows the way."

And, just like that, we were following a black-and-blue schizophrenic through the halls of Belleville Institute in search of a bowling alley. He led us down several corridors I'd never taken the time to venture down before, until eventually we came to an old, wooden door. Ryan shushed us as he pushed down the handle, lifting the door slightly as he opened it in an attempt to stop it squeaking. There wasn't much in the dark room, only one or two piles of stacked plastic chairs and a few dusty tables. I was confused for a few seconds, until Josh strolled over to a metal door at the end of the room, kneeling down to peer through the lock, rummaging in his pocket.  I wasn't sure what he was doing until Pete spoke.

"Y'know, being crazy has its perks. You get to mingle with the lock-picking trash."  
We all watched in anticipation for a few moments before there was a very audible click and a celebratory hiss from Josh. He pushed the door open, and reached inside the dark room, passing around several torches from inside. I grabbed one from him, switching it on and accidentally blinding Pete with the light.

"Dude, watch where you point that thing. My eyes cost me 400 bucks." Pete snapped, pushing the end down towards the floor. We filtered through the door, and down the cold metal stairs into the basement. 

The basement was significantly colder than the rest of the institute, and both walls and floor were nothing more than poured concrete. The floor was thick with dust, and it was clear that this was not somewhere people visited often. Our footprints were leaving marks on the floor, and I was beginning to worry that they would cause us to be caught. I had been too careless in the past, and it was making me paranoid. 

"It's in here!" Ryan whispered, gesturing with his hand for us to follow him. He opened an old wooden door slowly, and we all filed through after him. He turned on a light in the corner of the room, and as it lit up I could see just where we had been brought. The room was quite large, but cluttered with an assortment of old furniture. Tables with only three legs, old couches missing half the stuffing, chairs with no backs. A clock with the hands stuck permanently at 3:42. Anything broken or used-up seemed to have been stashed away here. Maybe we belonged down here after all.

 One thing in the room, which didn't seem to be broken, I quickly recognized as our reason for entering the basement in the first place. It was an old wooden bowling lane, the scratches and skid marks of decades worth of games showing on the previously-varnished surface. Lined up neatly at the end were all 10 pins, and I was surprised to even see three spherical bowling balls resting against one side. 

"Who's first?" Josh beamed, rocking back and forth as his arms swung by his sides. 

"Gerard should go first!" Pete yelled, only to be shushed by everyone else in the room.

"Not so loud!" Ryan hissed. "Okay, Gerard, you go first. Winner gets control of the TV tomorrow."

I smirked at the revelation of a prize, walking up to the end of the alley to grab one of the wooden balls. I strolled back down to the end, still not completely sure what I was doing until I bowled and knocked down 8 of the 10 pins and there was cheering from behind me.

"Guys, shut the fuck up." Ryan snapped, going to reinstate the pins before grabbing the ball himself. He tried to play it off casually, but I noticed him attempt to pick up the heavy sphere before hurriedly switching to rolling the ball to the end of the lane and sitting at the end. 

"You okay, Ryan?" I heard Brendon mumble, and I made a point of not lifting my gaze to look up at him.

"I'm fine, I'm fine." he rushed back, lining the ball up with the pins. "It's just a bit heavy." He rolled the ball down the alley, it taking a few seconds before reaching the pins. As if taking pity on him for not being strong enough to play properly, the ball managed to knock over all of the pins.  _A strike._  We all cheered for him excitedly, trying our best to be quiet while also celebrating his achievements. 

The game carried on for well over an hour, and we didn't do the best job of keeping score, or keeping quiet. Patrick accidentally threw the bowling ball straight upwards, hitting the ceiling, and Pete began to yell at them at one point, insisting his uncle was the inventor of bowling pins and _he knows how you work, motherfuckers._ Brendon stayed silent for the most part, looking at the stars and ships on his arms when it wasn't his turn and rolling the ball nonchalantly when it was. The game eventually ended when Josh claimed the pins had come to life and started crying when we tried to knock them over. Pete insisted he'd scored well over 400, but everyone else thought otherwise. Eventually we decided that the winner would be the person who'd scored the most strikes, but then nobody could remember how many they'd scored, so that didn't go as planned. In the end, Ryan decided that I was the winner, because the whole point of us playing was to cheer me up.

I couldn't particularly say it had worked.

Patrick loudly announced that he was tired, and we all agreed. We decided to head back upstairs and into bed, not even daring to think about what ungodly hour it was now. There weren't many clocks in the basement- well, ones that worked- and so we had no idea how much time had passed since we came down here.

We only got out last idea of the night when we walked past Dr James's office. We were all trying to be as quiet as possible to avoid detection, and so it made me jump when I heard the loud  _creak_ of a doorhinge from behind me. Looking round, I saw Brendon leaning through the door and into the office. 

"She must have forgotten to lock it..." he mumbled.

"What a pity. C'mon, we gotta get back." Ryan urged, trying his best not to raise his voice in frustration. 

"No, wait." I interjected. "There's something I want."

I pushed lightly past Ryan, and slightly less lightly past Brendon, into Dr James's room. I located the security camera in the corner and smiled at it, before sticking a Post-It Note over the lens and beginning to look for the manilla folder that had ruined my life. I tore open the largest desk drawer first, hoping that she would have it close to her due to the proximity of the event, and was stunned at what I found in the drawer. I didn't speak, merely looked up at the rest of the patients, blinking in disbelief.

"What is it?" Pete asked. "What are you looking for?" 

Patrick and Josh both walked over, eager to see what I had discovered which had shocked me so much. Upon peering into the drawer, they looked at each other, and then back up at the others.

"It's our files." Josh gulped, reaching over to slide his finger over the one labelled ' _RAMSAY, JOSHUA K'_

_"_ What do we do?" Pete asked, scratching his head nervously. "I mean I kind of want to read mine, but..."

"No." Ryan stated definitively. "We're going back, come on Brendon..." 

Brendon didn't move.

I opened the drawer fully, pulling out all of the folders in the section marked ' _F WARD'._ I didn't intend to read them all, but it was easier than cherrypicking. I placed them on the desk, and the others sat down on the chairs scattered around the room, with Ryan choosing to stand as he bit at his nails anxiously. 

"Alright, Pete Wentz?" I quipped, reaching out to hand him the brown folder bearing his name. He accepted quickly, sitting back down on an old brown armchair which I particularly disliked. I looked back down at the folders, becoming confused with the first one I was met with. 

"George R Ross?" I asked, looking up to the others. Ryan looked down, smiling sheepishly before walking forward and claiming the folder. I was slightly taken aback, but moved on. I handed out Patrick and Josh's folders, before coming face to face with one I didn't even want to touch.

"Brendon Urie." I said, tossing it towards him without a thought as to whether or not the paper would stay inside. It hit the floor instead, and some loose sheets flew out of the side. He scooped it up off of the floor, shooting me daggers as he did so. I scanned the folders for my own, but found yet another unknown name on the folder marked ' _WILLIAMS, HAYDEN N'._

_"_ Guys, who's Hayden Williams?" I asked, half-expecting him to be an ex-patient whose folder had been mistakenly placed with that of the current patients.

"Hayley." was all the answer I got from Josh, who was busy looking through his own folder. He didn't even look up.

"Bastards." I noted, grabbing a pen from Dr James's desk and scribbling out the old name, replacing it with ' _HAYLEY'._

I scanned through the rest of the folders quickly before finding the one marked 'WAY, GERARD A'. It felt thicker than the others, although it wasn't noticeably any bigger. I flicked open the cover just as I had only days before, and was met with reems of paper spouting about my health. Words and phrases I was well acquainted with such as ' _DEPRESSION_ ', ' _DANGER TO SELF AND OTHERS_ ', ' _VIOLENCE_ ' and ' _HISTORY OF ATTEMPTED SUICIDE_ ' littered the pages. It was funny- you stab one family member, and suddenly you're Satan himself.

The pages of diagnoses didn't interest me much. Dr James had taken great pleasure in lecturing me about them. It was what laid behind them that I wanted, and sure enough it was there. There was a wad of paper attempting to conceal it, but directly in the middle of my file was what I had entered this room to find- the manilla folder with the CCTV images inside. I grabbed it, tossing all of the patient files bar the ones being read back into the drawer and leaving the room, having found all that I wanted to take from her.

It was a shame I didn't see the folder at the back of the drawer, under ' _STAFF- PAST'._ The folder marked  _'IERO, FRANK A'_ that contained the answers to questions I didn't even realize I held.


	23. This Place Is A Hole

I hadn't been able to stop looking at the folder since bringing it back to my room. It was all I had left of him now, and I clung to it as if my life depended on it. As if it was some proof that all of this had really happened. Without Frank around anymore, it was easy to trick myself into believing that he had never been here at all. The dark and low-quality CCTV images were the only remnants of that relationship I had left. Memories could fade, or be misremembered, whereas pictures could last for as long as you wanted them to. I couldn't let them out of my sight.

I was sat on my bed, arms in the air as I held up one particular image to look at. It was the one in my room, from the day we were caught. I had been staring aimlessly at it for about half an hour, analyzing every microdetail that I may have missed before. 

I could remember just how I felt at that moment. I was full of love and lust. It had felt as if my whole body was on fire, heat emanating from my skin and reflecting back on Frank. I was alive and dying, breathing and drowning, alone and being watched. I would have given anything to go back to holding him in my arms. Missing him hurt too much to bear.

It wasn't just his presence that I missed- it was even simple things that him being here had enabled me to experience that now hurt. I no longer had a drawing muse at the ready whenever I requested one. I was starting to crave cigarettes again.

The door to my room opened abruptly, and I scrambled to hide what I was looking at. I glanced up to see Ryan leaning against my doorframe, a smug look on his face. 

"What?" I asked defensively, still trying to ensure that the folder was hidden from view.

"You were looking at your file again, weren't you?" he teased.

"No... what do you want anyway." I rushed out, wanting to change the subject quickly before he asked to see what it was that I had been staring at for so long.

"A few things" he nodded as he walked further into the room, sitting down on Pete's bed across from my own. "For starters, I wanted to talk about the other night."

"You mean the bowling, or me running off with a file?"

"Both, really." he laughed. "I just wanted you to know that going down to the basement to cheer you up was Brendon's idea."

"Brendon's?" I asked, sitting up properly now and staring back at Ryan, searching his face for some hint of dishonesty. "Are you sure?"

"I'm pretty sure. He feels so bad, y'know. He might not have always got along with Frank, but we all can see how much he meant to you. He feels awful that he caused him to go away."

"He didn't have to tell Dr James what he saw." I mumbled, the bitterness and vitriol evident in my voice. 

"You can't be too mad at him. He didn't know what to do- he panicked. He never wanted to hurt you."

"But he did." I stated shortly.

"Yeah, I know." he replied.

We sat there in silence for a few moments, and I could tell that Ryan wasn't sure what to say to make me feel better. My thoughts were racing with the new information he had provided me with- that Brendon actually felt guilty, and that he wanted me to feel better. It didn't fix everything. It wasn't even close. But it was a start. It was likely that neither me nor Brendon would be leaving the institute for a while, and I couldn't continue to despise him for the rest of our time here. I couldn't even bear these past few days of isolation, let alone the possible years more I could be in here for. I couldn't just ignore the fact that Brendon actually felt bad for what he had done to me. That wouldn't help either of us.

"There's something else, too." Ryan finally blurted out, as if he had only just remembered in the previous seconds. He started digging in his pocket, before bringing out an opened envelope, with a letter refolded and placed back inside. "It was sent to me, but there was a note inside. Said it was for you. I guess he thought it would be safer than sending it directly."

I looked at him in confusion, but he just handed me the envelope. I pulled out the letter, handwritten on old notebook paper, and began to read.

To the one I love,

I'm so fucking sorry that this happened. If I could do anything to turn back the clock and do everything right then I would. I would treat you so much better, and I would never have let us get caught like that. I would never let them take me away from you. I feel so guilty. I'm out here, free, able to do anything or go anywhere I want, while you're still stuck there. I can't know when you'll get out, but I promise you I'll be there when you do. I'm living with my friend Ray on Aspen Road. The small house with the yellow bricks. I'm doing all I can. As soon as you get out, come and find me. I'll be there, I promise. I love you so much, and the days are so empty without you. I miss you so fucking much.

xofrnk

I looked back up at Ryan, tears welling up in my eyes. I willed myself not to cry, but I wasn't too sure I could stop myself. This letter meant everything to me. It was confirmation in black-and-white, not just that it had happened, but that it wasn't over. Frank hadn't been lying when he had said it wasn't the end. He could have said anything he wanted to make me feel better in the moment, without thinking about actually fulfilling his words. But he wasn't like that. Frank wasn't prepared to give up on me that easily. There was no way he would ever be prepared to let me rot inside these concrete walls. 

"Are you okay?" he asked tenderly, placing a hand on my forearm gently.

"Yeah," I smiled, sniffling slightly. "I'm fine."

"Come on, we gotta go. Dinner's starting soon." I nodded, folding the letter up and slipping it into my pocket. I'd need it later.


	24. But I Don't Wanna Go

It had been exactly a month since Frank had been moved to another institute. I had been dreading the date in the days beforehand, and everyone around me could sense the tension. I wasn't sure what was so significant about the one month marker, but it distressed me deeply all the same. Perhaps it was the idea that this would only be the first month of many, or maybe it was just the fact that a month was so easy to identify. Seventeen days after he had gone I didn't know how long it had been, and his absence was more the background heartache than the forefront death sentence. But a month was obvious in it's arrival. The 17th of August and the 17th of September were too close for it not to hurt. 

Truth be told, I wasn't coping well. I was crushed inside, but I tried to maintain a happier facade. Dr James had repeatedly told me I had made 'fast progress' in my recovery, and that she was proud of me, but inside I felt worse than I had done in over a year. She had torn away the light inside of me- and now my guts were as dark and cold as ever. The leftover cigarette cravings now my supplier was gone did not help.

There was one upside to my day- it was a Saturday, which meant Mikey was coming to visit me. I missed having Mikey around when I was in here. We were unbelievably close before I was admitted, and I still wasn't completely used to not having him around twenty four hours a day any more.

Mikey had become my de facto therapist over the few weeks since I lost Frank. Despite the fact that I had a real, actually qualified therapist around me most hours of every day, I much preferred to confide in my younger brother with the woes of my soul. With him, I could actually talk about the distress and upset I felt every day now that Frank wasn't around any more. He still wasn't decided as to whether or not he liked him, and was still hung up over the fact that he had supposedly held power over me. It was frustrating to have to explain and defend Frank's every move, but I knew that Mikey was just concerned for my welfare. He didn't want anyone to take advantage of me in here. If I was vulnerable before, I sure was now.

It was a comforting familiarity, sitting in the same blue plastic chair and waiting for my brother to arrive. I watched the other patients like I always have done, talking to people I have never known and likely never will. Brendon and Ryan were back in their usual seat, talking to Brendon's parents about whatever miscellaneous thing was happening in their dull lives. Ryan's mother hadn't returned since the day she came to visit. I had tried to ask Ryan about it, but when I did he dismissed me quickly and refused to say very much at all. I could tell she was not someone he wished to talk about.

Patrick's curly haired man also had not returned. I didn't ask about him though- I wasn't sure I knew Patrick well enough to pry, and it was much more entertaining to surmise my own theories as to why exactly he had been there. My favourite was that he was a spy, and that Patrick was soon to be shipped off on a Secret Spy Mission to Russia, the details of which would be highly confidential.

Josh was sat with the brown haired man again, and he was gently rubbing the blue dye into his fringe. I wasn't completely sure why they allowed him to do it, but nobody had ever attempted to stop him. He simply put the dye in Josh's hair, they talked, and then Josh would take a shower after visiting hours were over. It wasn't the most sophisticated method, but it worked. 

The door at the front of the room opened suddenly, and I looked up to see a panting Mikey, bending over slightly with one hand on his chest as he attempted to catch his breath.

"There a giant boulder out there, Indiana Jones?" I asked cockily, smirking when he didn't even look up at me to flip me off. "Careful, there's kids in here. What would poor Ryan do if he encountered a swear?"

"FUCK OFF!" Ryan shouted from the other end of the room, before being quickly shushed by several orderlies, Brendon, Brendon's parents, and whatever skunk-haired guy was sat across from Alex. 

Mikey half-dragged himself over to the chair opposite me, collapsing in it and looking at me as if he had just climbed Everest and been insulted for his trouble.

"You don't have to run you know. I expect you to be late. I don't think you've  _ever_ been on time to see me." 

"I know, I know" he huffed, waving his hand in the air dismissively. "It wasn't you I was running for."

"So there  _was_ a boulder?" I asked, faking shock. I was pushing my luck, but Mikey did little but smile and shake his head. 

"No, you dick. I was running because a dog was chasing me." 

"Oh yeah no that's totally reasonable, sorry for doubting you Mr Doolittle."

"Shut up. I spilled a can of hot dogs on my jeans before I left the house. That's why I was late, I couldn't get that weird brine stuff out. And they can smell it from a mile away. He was chasing me because I smelled like a walking breakfast." I was about to argue that he simply could have  _changed_ his jeans before leaving the house, but Mikey decided that instead of giving me time to respond, he would switch to a whole different subject matter instead. "Anyway, so I have some news, but I'm not exactly supposed to tell you."

"You're going to anyway, right?" I asked suspiciously.

"Yeah, yeah, of course. Anyway... I got a phone call yesterday from Dr James. I've been talking to her for a while about when you would be able to come home, and she said..." he trailed off at the end, becoming distracted by a notification on his phone and managing to frustrate me greatly.

"What did she say?" I pushed, not liking being held in suspense. 

"She said... you can come home on Tuesday."

My heart skipped a beat as he said that last word. I wasn't wholly sure if I had heard him correctly, so I asked him again. He only repeated that yes, I could come home on Tuesday. 

Today was Sunday.

I was going home in two days.


End file.
